General Curriculum Guidelines

The two year old year is a year spent with much time devoted to developing the confidence to be away from home and to trust another adult with our needs and concerns. Although many children are engaging in “side by side” play at this age, they are also learning about sharing, taking turns, and working cooperatively. Two year olds start the year with everything being “me or mine”, and progress to a sense of themselves and awareness of others around them by the end of the year. Two year olds also begin exploring their world in an organized manner. Topics like the seasons, holidays, butterflies, nursery rhymes, and the Texas rodeo, bring familiar objects and subjects into new focus from many different perspectives. Listening, talking, and observing augment touching to replace “tasting” as the most prominent sensory experience of the two year old child. The children learn school skills like lining up, hand washing, gluing, coloring, painting, and other fine and large motor skills. Two year olds have a "recess" time everyday, either on the playground where there are scooters, tricycles, a climbing piece and imaginative play areas, or indoors in the multi-purpose room. Physical Education class uses songs and games to work on motor skills like hopping, jumping, ball throwing and catching, as well as rhythmic movement. In the classroom two year olds are exposed to the printed word, counting in one to one correspondence and naming that process with numbers. Two year olds are constantly encouraged to "use their words" and to try to recognize their feelings of happiness, anger, or sadness.

The three year old year builds on the skills learned in
the two year old class. Because three year olds are more confident of being "left" in the classroom, they can focus their energies on learning new things. Three year olds are also learning self control and how self control can extend to better peer relations. Patience or waiting is a necessary school skill that moves right along with taking turns. Three year olds begin to understand that we cannot do everything all at the same time, and that by using proper social and language skills; we can navigate the complex world of adults and peers. At the same time, threes are being taught to identify and correctly act upon their emotions. The three year old daily schedule is more structured than that of the two year olds, with small groups of 3’s in learning and play centers for longer periods of time. Threes also enjoy learning to work independently, without interruption from other children or adults. Threes begin to be critical of their own work, and we encourage them to create their own scale of expectations. They begin with everything being "super" or "terrible", then are shown that effort can improve outcome. Three year olds work very hard on scissor skills, number recognition, and beginning writing skills. While a two year old recognizes that he can make a mark, the three year old child begins to understand that his "marks" on paper can have meaning, sometimes only to them, but eventually to others as well. Counting and patterning, matching and pairing are skills that are practiced daily. Manipulative activity becomes more important as muscle tone improves in the hands for better control of the pencil and scissors.

The four year old year is one that contrasts sharply with earlier stages. Four year olds are very conscious of "boys vs. girls" and begin to feel the criticism or favoritism of their peers. This is a crucial time for developing additional social skills needed in Kindergarten. Four year olds learn that their own behaviors impact the way others see them and react to them, and they begin to mimic others in the classroom or in the media. Four year olds know that the "marks" on paper and in books have meaning, and they seek out information about letters, the sounds that they make and the patterns of letters that make words. While these skills are developmental and should not be pushed, children are encouraged and surrounded by print – labels and signs that encourage communication. Four year olds love opposites, finding things that are alike or different, and searching for hidden pictures. They also understand the concept of rhyming, and once they become proficient, they go overboard, rhyming all the time! The four year old child is also asserting his or her independence from Mom and Dad, refusing or negotiating about situations or issues that you thought were resolved a long time ago. They may change their eating, sleeping, or dressing habits, and things that were favorites are now no longer desired. This is a positive step even if it is sometimes painful for Mom and Dad. The positive is in the increased self confidence they feel at making their own choices and being willing to accept the consequences of their decisions, merely because it is their decision! This is the perfect time to let children make mistakes. Preschool is a completely safe environment to learn about what is acceptable and what is not in our culture. Children who want to try a different hair style or dress in non-matching clothes are exploring their social realm. It is much easier to let a four year old experience some disappointment when their friends don’t accept their clothing style than it is for a 14 year old to learn the same lesson! The key to making this a learning experience is how you as a parent see it and talk to them about it. If the parent allows the child to make some decisions, ask them to predict what will happen if they make a choice and are disappointed or mistaken. What will they do the next time? How will they know if they are successful? Once the decision is made, watch for the resulting consequence and then ask, how did you feel about that? What will you do next time? Try not to be the "all-knowing, I told you so." Let them express what happened in their own words – it is 100 times more powerful if it comes from them. Four year olds want to do everything for themselves – dressing, fixing food, setting up their environment. A great outlet for this is further responsibilities at home – small jobs. Children who are four can set the table, help with cooking, grocery shopping, (look for this label or picture or letter of the alphabet) and they can help with the trash and recycling. For the four year old, if phrased appropriately, these are not "chores" to be disdained but opportunities to do things that older children and adults can do, and making it part of their daily routine helps them assert themselves as full members of the family – not babies who have to be continually cared for by others.

Five year olds are a delight because they feel so much more confident about their peer relations and their decision making, and so the mind is open to incredible opportunities for intellectual development. To watch a child decide he or she is ready to read is a wonderful benefit of parenting. Not every child will accept this at five, but most of the key developmental phases are accumulating, and if not this year, it is coming soon. Once a child determines they can "read", they will attempt to read anything – boxes, signs, newspapers, books – you name it. Of course often they are not "reading" in an adult sense of the word, but they are memorizing the combinations of symbols and sounds they see everywhere. This is an important milestone, and again it cannot be pushed. A child who is pushed to read before he is ready will be heard to say "I don’t want to read" or "it is too hard", and it is too hard if their development has not caught up with their environment. Teachers and parents alike want reading to be a wonderful thing, not something associated with pain or dread. On the other side of reading is writing – not just interpreting someone else’s words but actually communicating our own words. The ability to label things with our own name and discern others’ names, is fascinating and fun. You will often find the first words children want to read and write over and over again are their own names and those of their friends and families. Be patient and give them lots of paper! Math concepts also take a large leap this year as children find the usefulness of counting, in particular. Children often find great pleasure in calendars, lists, and directions at this age, insisting that actions are completed in the correct order. A home calendar with special days marked in colors or with stickers helps children "count down" to events and gives them a sense of control over their environment. They often want to check over and over – how many days until the special day? Let them count, and then mark it off! Let them help make checklists and grocery lists and mark off completed items, counting how many more days are left. Franklin Covey and the DayTimer manufacturers know you start learning these skills very early and that it is human nature to want to have a sense of our accomplishments and goals. The five year old year is also about increased responsibility for our actions, our words, our work and our belongings. Letting your child take care of his or her "things" is very important. This is the perfect age to let them forget something and learn the consequences. If you rescue your child every time, you will still be doing it in middle school and college, when it is much more disastrous. Missing a meal or not getting to do something because we have the wrong clothes or shoes is hard to accept at first, but these are lessons that will last a life time.