To provide the children of Loveland with a caring and stimulating environment for their first adventure into the world of education.

Mission

We aim to meet the educational and developmental needs of the children we serve by offering a quality education at a reasonable tuition rate, providing our children with a diversity of experiences and role models, and giving families a chance to be intimately involved in their child’s early-education experience.

Values

Learning is a complex process resulting from the interaction of children’s thinking and their direct experience in the world. A solid foundation of rich and varied experiences is crucial to all future learning. At Community Preschool our play-based curriculum will:

• Allow time for the child to explore and discover.
• Arrange the school environment to encourage independence and build responsibility.
• Provide tools and encouragement for creative expression through active participation in a developmentally appropriate environment.
• Foster feelings of high self-esteem and independence within a peer group of the same age, while learning to respect the rights of the group.
• Provide the security of being accepted away from home.
• Encourage growth in the five areas of child development (social/emotional, cognitive, language, gross motor skills, and fine motor skills).

A good preschool meets the educational and developmental needs of the children it serves. At Community Preschool, children are given the opportunity to play alone and in groups. There is active play balanced by quiet activities both indoors and out. We encourage creative expression through language, movement, listening, and discussion. We also encourage children to learn through sensory experiences and play materials with different textures.

A typical school day allows time for free play such as creative work with paint, play dough, crayons, etc. There is a mixture of stories, music, science, dramatic play, and group games indoors and out. In addition, there is a snack time with nutritious snacks and drinks.

Our program goals are the following:

1. Allow time for the child to explore and discover.
2. Arrange material to encourage independence in getting toys and supplies, and build responsibility for putting them away.
3. Provide tools for creative expression.
4. Offer a peer group of the same age.
5. Provide security of being accepted away from home.

Have you ever heard someone remark about an early childhood program—even ours, perhaps—“All the children do there is play”? At good early childhood programs there is a lot of play—and there should be!

Years of research on children’s learning and development document the many benefits of play for children’s intellectual, social, emotional, physical, and language development. Children at play are actively involved in creating themes, exploring and establishing environments, solving problems, and developing shared understandings.

Children play in many ways. They play independently, sometimes near each other but with each child engrossed in his own activity. They engage in what is called ”parallel play,” perhaps using each others’ toys or even talking, but not coordinating their play. They also play cooperatively, organizing roles and scenarios for group play. As they get older, children are capable of more cooperative, coordinated play. But all kinds of play are valuable.

As kids play with each other, they learn to see other children’s points of view and begin to become more empathetic and caring. They come to understand customs and rules in their own culture and to appreciate those of others. They learn to use language in new ways to describe their play and to interact with others. And in play, children develop their muscles and coordination.

Adults support children’s play by providing space, opportunity and materials. We set up areas where kids can play without fear of damaging furniture or injuring themselves. We make sure that they have the time to choose and to become engaged in their own play activities. And when we provide them with simple, interesting materials—no newfangled, expensive gadgets required—kids take it from there.

Play is fun. But it also is serious business that pays big dividends to its eager, young investors.

You probably have noticed that our classrooms have a lot of bustle and noise, that children are up doing things, talking, playing, and exploring. Such a classroom environment differs from the old grade-school images of a teacher doing a lot of talking at a blackboard while children sit and listen quietly at their desks.

Research and experience tell us that to be effective with young children, teaching practices need to be “developmentally-appropriate.” What this means is simply that educators need to think first about what young children are like and then create an environment and experiences that are in tune with children’s characteristics.

Early childhood, after all, is a time of life quite different from adulthood, and even from the later school years. Children 3–6 learn far better through direct interactive experiences than through just listening to someone talk. They learn extraordinary amounts through play and exploration. And the younger children are, the more what they learn needs to be relevant and interesting on the day they learn it, not just in the context of some future learning.

Based on such knowledge about what children of this age are like, we design our program to fit them. It works a lot better than trying to redesign children!

A developmentally-appropriate program like ours is age-appropriate. But that’s not all. To make a program a good place for every child, we gear our classroom environments and activities to this community and the families involved. We’re eager to learn as much as we can about each child’s family, cultural background, past experience, and current circumstances. With this knowledge we work to create a program that fits the children and the families we serve.

A question like, “What color is that block?” evokes a one-word answer. But an open-ended question, “Tell me about the blocks you are using,” encourages a child to describe the blocks or explain what she is doing. There is no right or wrong answer here.

An answer to an open-ended questions gives us a window into what the child is thinking and feeling. And the response is sometimes wonderfully creative. In explaining or describing, children also use language more fully.

In our program, we try to think of good questions to ask children. You might hear one of us say to a child,

• Tell me about your picture.
• What else can you do with the play dough?
• What could you use to make the tower stand up?
• What do you think would happen if…?
• Is there another way to…?

It is difficult to change the closed-end question habit. But when we ask open-ended questions, children reap great benefits as they think through their responses to express what they want to say. And with their answers, we find out more about what they think and feel.

As adults, we are concerned with the outcomes or the product of our efforts. We want the report to look nice, the cookies to taste great, or the hedges to be perfectly straight. We participate in few activities just for the fun of doing them.

In part this is because we are not still learning how to do most of these activities. But do you remember when you learned how to play tennis or golf? Or use a new computer program? In the beginning you needed a certain amount of time for “messing around”—exploring what happens if you did this or that.

That is the way it is with your child. Kids are learning new things all the time, and they need the freedom to try things out without worrying about the product.

Luckily, young children tend to be more involved with the process or the doing than they are with the end product or results. That is why your child may draw all afternoon yet still not be able to tell you what he drew. And why one child can pour rice back and forth between pitchers all day long, and another will string and unstring beads every day for a week.

It is hard for us adults to look beyond the product of an activity and see what the child is learning from the process. Perhaps he’s learning coordination or beginning writing skills or making discoveries about triangles or gravity. He’s certainly finding out that doing for one’s self is very satisfying—and that builds confidence.

Be patient. Allow your child the time to grow and learn through various processes that are part of the task. Enjoy watching his or her involvement. Later, we all can be proud of the product.

Make-believe play is not only one of the great joys of childhood, it also offers abundant opportunities for children’s development. Children develop interpersonal skills, particularly cooperation and conflict resolution, and improve their language and problem-solving abilities in pretend (dramatic) play.

Around the age of 2, children begin to pretend to cry, sleep, and eat. They soon include a stuffed animal, doll, or favorite toy in their play. They also begin to transform objects into symbols—a simple block becomes a fast race car or a stick makes a fine race horse.

As children approach 3, they begin participating in make-believe play with other kids. Dramatic play gradually becomes more elaborate and complex. Four- and five-year-olds engage in socio-dramatic play, which provides opportunities to rehearse adult roles. Such play helps children make sense of the world.

These first dramatic experiences often focus on home experiences. Kids pretend to cook, clean, and care for younger children. That’s why our dramatic play area has props and equipment that represent the home setting. These stimulate children to act out roles familiar to them.

Dramatic play fosters emotional development as children work through fears and worries in a safe context. Social skills are promoted as children communicate and negotiate their roles and actions. Another plus is that children use language more frequently and more elaborately in make-believe play than they do in virtually any other activity.

Parents can actively encourage dramatic play at home by capitalizing on their children’s interest at the moment, developing themes from stories their children have heard or movies they have seen, and providing props for pretend play. Providing a home environment that is conducive to play stimulates intellectual and social development. At the same time, parents will be developing rich memories of their children at play—memories that last a lifetime.

Vacations are an opportunity to build a sense of family togetherness without the pressures of everyday life. Where the family goes and how long the stay are not important, but the best vacations are planned around the interest and developmental levels of children.

When planning a trip with young children, remember that they need and like routine. A family should keep nap time, mealtimes, and bedtimes as close to the normal routine as possible. It also helps when the itinerary is discussed so that kids know what to expect.

The family that travels with preschoolers should consider this age group’s self-centeredness, short attention span, and need for movement. Children at age 3 or 4 make good travelers, though. They enjoy physical activity, quite playtime, arts and crafts, and most of what parents suggest. They also enjoy exploring and talking about their observations and experiences.

Traveling with this age group does present some challenges. A survival kit helps minimize irritability and crankiness during long hours of driving. Pack healthy snacks, storybooks, crayons, markers, paper, games, and a tape player and tapes.

By preplanning your vacation, ensuring some routine, yet allowing for flexibility, everyone in your family can enjoy the adventure.

It is difficult for small children to recall and describe what they did during the program day. Children are active and busy for the entire time, but they sometimes lack the words to tell others about their activities—or by the time you pick them up, they have moved on to other things.

Parents, of course, want to know about their child’s day. Here are a few ideas to keep in mind when asking your child about his or her activities.

• Keep informed of the class’s planned events so you can ask specific questions. For example, “Did you get to go on the nature walk today, or was it too rainy?”

• With most children, avoid general questions like, “What happened at school today?”

• Avoid questions that produce one-word answers.

• Ask specific questions such as:

—“Whose ‘sharing time’ was it today? Tell me about what she/he shared.”
—“What was in the art center today?”
—“Tell me about this drawing in your backpack.”

Sometimes telling the child a little something about your own day starts the ball rolling. The child may get the idea of sharing news and feelings about his or her day.

We all know that if a bridge is not structurally sound, it will eventually collapse. Likewise, if relationships are not built on a sturdy foundation, they too will fail.

Too often parents and program staff are intimidated by each other. But by willingly beginning the home/school relationship with an open, sharing approach, we can build trust. Then, when issues arise—even sticky ones—we can talk about them without hesitation.

All of us here try to do our best to keep you informed. We post pertinent information on the parent bulletin board as well as including it in the newsletter. We send home other information with your child. We also want to talk with each of you often.

Feel welcome to visit the classroom at any time. Drop by and tell us a story or show us something special. Or just take a break, have a seat, and enjoy the children.

Clearly, ongoing interaction and support from both families and staff make the connection between home and school a two-way street. You can help by sharing information about your child with us. Especially during any crisis or period of change, when children are under stress and act or react differently, please keep us informed. Obvious times include a change in jobs, a move to a new house, or an illness or death in the family, but they also could involve the child experiencing nightmares, making changes in eating habits, and stopping or starting medication. Of course, anything you share with a member of our staff will be held in confidence.

In turn, we’ll alert you to anything out of the ordinary that we might notice in your child here at school. Only by sharing information can we build a bridge strong enough to support our children.

Long before a child learns to form letters with a pencil or marker, she has taken many steps toward learning to write. Children must have many opportunities to use their hands to do various things before they can successfully print letters.

Molding with clay, using large and small LEGOs, picking up beads, and playing with knobbed puzzles all prepare the fingers and hands for writing. Scribbling with markers and crayons, controlling a pencil for use with a stencil, using chalk on the sidewalk, and painting with fingers and large brushes are a few of the ways children practice for later writing.

We stock our room with plenty of paper, paper clips, staplers, pencils, markers, and crayons, and we make sure that these materials are available for children to use whenever they choose. Children may want to “write” notes to eerie friends or messages to their teacher or parents. They use writing materials in their dramatic play—making signs for a store, tickets for a show, menus for a restaurant, and so on.

As children experiment, developmental stages of writing become evident. Children move from random scribbling to controlled scribbles, to random alphabet letters, to consonants that represent words. Only with lots of opportunities to practice can children move through these stages.

If your child does not have a proper pencil grip, cannot purposefully manipulate a crayon, or simply shows no interest in learning to write, he or she probably is not ready to do so. Take care not to push. Children enjoy learning a new skill only when they are really ready for it. Getting ready is just as important as mastering the skill.

Young children are natural dancers. Even infants bounce up and down to the beat of the music.

Enjoyable and natural though it is, creative movement helps children learn many concepts. It teaches them to balance and coordination through challenging moves and postures. It teaches rhythm and beat as children choreograph their movements with music. It even promotes children’s ability to predict what comes next by hearing repeated musical phrases. Creative movement is also an important tool for developing children’s self-esteem and body awareness.

It’s easy to engage children in dance and creative movement. Just move with them. Kids love dancing with their families. Turn on the radio or put on your old tapes or records and enjoy singing and dancing together.

Add to the experience by using movement props. Sheer or silky scarves are fun to use when dancing. These can be found at local thrift shops or dime stores. Streamers are also great fun for children. Just glue ribbon or paper streamers to short pieces of dowel rods. Rhythm sticks, used to keep time with the beat of the music, also can be made at home. Foot-long lengths of dowel rod can be sanded smooth and painting or left bare.

Try creative movement with your child. Play different kinds of music to expand the experience. This is a wonderful way to have fun together—and even to get some exercise!

Getting dressed on time in the morning can be a real challenge for many of us, but it is particularly difficult for young children who have to contend with buttons, zippers, and shoelaces when their fine motor skills are still developing.

When families are trying to get ready to leave the house at a certain time, parents will probably ned to help young children with the dressing process. Preschool children want to be independent but get easily frustrated when the buttons won’t do what they want them to do or the zipper will not cooperate. That frustration leads to an even more stressful morning.

Helping kids learn to contend with the logistics of buttoning buttons, zipping zippers, and tying shoelaces is best done during less stressful times. Concentrate on one skill at a time. Work together and assure children that they will be able to do this with practice. As a parent, you might want to consider shoes with Velcro fasteners, as well as other clothing items that young children can manage more easily as these skills are developing.

Learning to control hands and fingers according to information received from sight is a coordination skip that will aid children in early attempts of reading and writing.

We adults can provide many different opportunities for children to develop these skills. Dressing and undressing dolls and dramatic play with clothes that have buttons and zippers are good for practice. Activities such as shaping play dough, stringing beads, and placing pegs into pegboards also enhance the fine motor skills needed for dressing.

With appropriate experiences, your child will gradually mater all the intricacies of getting dressed and undressed.

Getting dressed on time in the morning can be a real challenge for many of us, but it is particularly difficult for young children who have to contend with buttons, zippers, and shoelaces when their fine motor skills are still developing.

When families are trying to get ready to leave the house at a certain time, parents will probably ned to help young children with the dressing process. Preschool children want to be independent but get easily frustrated when the buttons won’t do what they want them to do or the zipper will not cooperate. That frustration leads to an even more stressful morning.

Helping kids learn to contend with the logistics of buttoning buttons, zipping zippers, and tying shoelaces is best done during less stressful times. Concentrate on one skill at a time. Work together and assure children that they will be able to do this with practice. As a parent, you might want to consider shoes with Velcro fasteners, as well as other clothing items that young children can manage more easily as these skills are developing.

Learning to control hands and fingers according to information received from sight is a coordination skip that will aid children in early attempts of reading and writing.

We adults can provide many different opportunities for children to develop these skills. Dressing and undressing dolls and dramatic play with clothes that have buttons and zippers are good for practice. Activities such as shaping play dough, stringing beads, and placing pegs into pegboards also enhance the fine motor skills needed for dressing.

With appropriate experiences, your child will gradually mater all the intricacies of getting dressed and undressed.

Children are born without biases about other people of any race, culture, gender, or disability. We sometimes wonder if we can raise children free of prejudice by just leaving well enough alone and making sure not to pass on negative attitudes. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work this way; society’s messages are to pervasive. As parents and teachers, we need to take positive action if children are to grow up comfortable with who they are *and* respectful of others.

We want to work with you to create a program that helps to counter society’s messages of bias and reflects the cultural background of all children and families. To begin with, we choose books, dolls, and even pictures on the wall, with an eye to finding balance and showing children what they see too little of elsewhere. For instance, we make a point of showing men and women of all ethnic backgrounds doing a variety of jobs, men as well as women doing household chores and spending time with children, and different kinds of families enjoying themselves.

Are we doing all this to be “politically correct”? Not really. We’re committed to helping children grow up confident of their own identity, respectful of other people, and aware of the rich diversity of their community and world. We can do his only by working closely with our families, hearing your perspectives, and finding out more about the cultural background that each child brings to the program.

Parents are even more important than teachers in children’s development of attitudes. If you have any questions about how our program is addressing issues of bias and diversity or is you wan tot talk over issues that arise at home, please let us know what you’re thinking or wondering. Of course, we are far from having all the answers. We want to hear what you’re thinking, and we’re always happy to talk things over.

Books should be an integral part of a child’s life. You can bring books to life for your child by finding books that relate to the family’s activities and by extending books that you’ve already read together.

Books about family activities are relatively easy to find. For example, if you go to the zoo, find a book about animals; if you walk along a park pond, get a book from the library that discusses pond life; if you have a new baby, find a book about infants and siblings. The possibilities are endless.

Ask a children’s librarian or someone who works in the children’s section of a bookstore to help you find books of interest. Look for other books at used book sales or yard sales and flea markets.

Extending a book the family has already read is easy, too. It’s as simple as providing materials for children to draw or paint their favorite part of the book.

Or you can act out what the characters in a book do. If the characters are firefighters or astronauts or chefs, gather a few props to spark the child’s play. If the characters plant a garden, you and your child can, too. If the story or a part of it takes place at a bakery or grocery store, in a forest, or at a swimming pool, read it just before you set out of the same kind of place. Then, with your child you can notice things you saw in the book, point out things you haven’t seen before, and look at the book again when you get home.

When children read about familiar activities or when they act out favorite stories, books come alive for them. Reading becomes more meaningful, more memorable, and more fun.

The ability to pretend is very important to a child’s future success. To pretend, children must be able to recall experiences they have had and then re-create them. They must be able to picture experiences in their minds.

Children like to try on different roles, act out experiences, recall past events, and work out anxieties. One day a child may act out going to the grocery store, making a list, gathering items, paying at a checkout counter. Another day the child may pretend to be a dentist or a firefighter.

One way to encourage dramatic play—“pretend” experiences that enhance your child’s cognitive abilities and encourage creative thinking and problem solving—is through the use of prop boxes or bags. Prop boxes contain an assortment of items centered on a dramatic play theme.

For a day-at-the-beach theme, a box may hold beach towels, old swimsuits, flip-flops, empty suntan-lotion containers, old sunglasses, and magazines. Or a box may contain a baker’s hat, rolling pin, cookie cutters, play dough, pans, spoons, aprons, and dish towels.

Clearly label the containers, perhaps with pictures and words, and store them where your child can reach them. Keep adding to your collections. Yard sales and flea markets are great places to find props. As your child’s interests change, start new collections.

Your child will benefit from these collections in many ways other than just having fun. For instance, research indicates that children who have many opportunities to participate in dramatic play use more sophisticated language and become better readers and writers.

Prop boxes are only as limited as the imagination.

Children learn best when activities are meaningful to them. Experts in the early development of mathematical concepts tell us that children develop mathematical understanding in situations in which number and quantity are relevant and important to them.

Games provide the opportunity. Playing games is a wonderful way for children to share time with family members, to have fun, and to learn. Kids love to play games with their favorite grown-ups.

In simple card games such as Go Fish, Concentration, or Crazy Eights, children learn many different things. They identify numerals, match numerals or objects, and practice memory skills. They also develop fine motor skills by picking up and handling the cards.

By playing dominoes or games with dice, children learn to count the dots and to relate those dots to the number they represent. Moving game pieces the right number of spaces on a board adds the concept of one-to-one correspondence, and constantly comparing the rolled numbers helps develop number sense.

The games we choose should be appropriate for the age of the child. With commercial games, look for the age recommendations on the game box. Remember, noncompetitive games are best—young children hate to lose.

As we play games with children, we can extend their mathematical thinking by asking simple questions: How many matches did you get? Do you have more red cards or more black cards? Would you lie to deal us six cards each? Continued opportunities to play games and talk and think about number concepts help children develop their own math understandings.

When we cook in class, children combine ingredients, mix, stir, and taste. They also use the descriptive words of literature—nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs—to describe the what, how, where, and why, as well as the movements, textures, tastes, and feelings, associated with food and cooking.

This combination of cooking and books can be continued at home. As Sunday morning pancakes are cooked, consider referring to Eric Carle's Pancakes, Pancakes (Simon & Schuster 1990), or Tomie de Paula's Pancakes for Breakfast (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 1978). Make split pea soup from the George and Martha series by James Marshall (Houghton Mifflin) or porridge after reading a version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Buy or bake different kinds of bread after you read Bread, Bread, Bread by Ann Morris (Mulberry 1989).

Literature and cooking experiences are limited only by your imagination. Use your child's food preferences as a starting place and expand the experiences from there. As in any other shared reading time, talking about the story is just as important as reading the book. Make comments about the plot as you read, helping connect events in the book to the child's life. For example, when reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle (Collins 1979), you might remark, “Remember when we bought those good plums at the grocery store?” Ask questions that help your child think about the story: “How do you think you would feel if you ate everything that the Very Hungry Caterpillar ate on Saturday?”

Connecting books with enjoyable family experiences—like cooking or conversation—sends your child the message that reading is fun for children and grown-ups, too.

Active learning takes advantage of children's natural desire to move and touch. Young children love to manipulate items and
explore new ideas. They enjoy the opportunity to see how things work and to test their own theories.

Active learning takes advantage of children’s natural motivations, abilities, and interests. Kids get lots of opportunities to investigate what interests them—to solve problems, discover relationships, and make comparisons.

Children use all their senses to make discoveries: how heavy is it? does it smell? can 1 find another one that feels the same? what does it sound like when I drop it? how is it different from the other items?

Using their hands, eyes, nose, ears, and mouth to explore an item, children gather more information and remember what they learn.

As they interact directly with the environment, children not only gather sensory information, they also refine their senses and motor skills. For example, it takes very refined movement of the hands and fingers to produce the penmanship required for writing. Squeezing clay, picking up puzzle pieces, and lacing threads through beads are ways for young children to practice using hands and fingers.

We organize the classroom environment to promote active learning, and we do lots of things to encourage children to think and talk about their discoveries and creations. The next time you want your child to learn about something, provide the materials, space, and time. Then step back and watch. You will be surprised at how much more the child will discover through active involvement.

Source of articles above: Family-Friendly Communication for Early Childhood Programs; Deborah Diffily and Kathy Morrison, Editors; Copyright © 1996 by the National Education for the Education of Young Children