Preschool

In the visual arts, preschool students learn to be artists in a community space and discover new ways to express themselves, their thinking, and their learning. Music classes focus on the musical community and group awareness, as children develop a disposition to musical learning through singing, beat, and movement. Woodshop is a space where students engage in individual and collaborative projects, with goals of nurturing social emotional skills, agency and autonomy, creative empowerment, and care for each other and our community.

When young children enter the classroom, they already carry many stories inside them. The preschool classroom is a place where they can share, explore, and bring those stories to life through play, imagination, and capturing their ideas. With teachers and friends, children tell stories—both real and pretend—read books, and enjoy the magic of words, sounds, and language.

In meaningful, real-life experiences, children learn literacy skills they feel excited to use. They share their ideas by talking, drawing, writing, moving, and using materials like paint, sand, and water to bring their stories to life and remember them. These varied ways help children develop their ability to capture and express their thoughts in ways that feel meaningful to them.

By listening to the stories of others, children deepen their understanding and appreciation of the many different experiences in their community. Here, storytelling is always changing as children add new ideas, celebrate their creativity, and share their unique voices. Through this, children build connections and a sense of belonging within their learning community.

Skills

• Expressive and receptive language
• Phonemic awareness (rhyming, recognizing sounds in words)
• Beginning to recognize letters
• Concepts of print (holding a book, recognizing that print carries meaning)
• Re-telling and creating stories through drawings, creative movement, drama, and conversations
• Asking and answering questions about stories read aloud
• Using drawings, shapes, and letters to represent thinking

In preschool, children build mathematical understanding through hands-on, experiential learning. Using engaging tools and materials, they apply their natural curiosity to explore concepts and test ideas. As they play, authentic questions emerge. Teachers respond by offering materials, conversations, and experiences that deepen and extend mathematical thinking.

Mathematical language is woven into daily life. At community meetings, children share their strategies and describe their thinking, practicing the use of number names, shapes, quantities, and attributes.

The preschool classroom is intentionally rich with materials that spark mathematical exploration. Children sort, classify, count, pattern, and build spatial awareness. Loose parts, games, unifix cubes, and rekenreks provide visual and tactile support for early numeracy. Wooden blocks, pattern blocks, geoboards, and Magna-Tiles invite investigation of patterns, relationships, and attributes. Sensory materials offer playful opportunities to scoop, pour, fill, and explore ideas of conservation and change.

As they make sense of the world through numbers, patterns, and relationships, children come to see themselves as joyful, capable mathematicians—full of ideas and insight.

Big Ideas in Preschool

• Saying number names up to twenty
• Counting with one-to-one correspondence
• Understanding that numbers signify a quantity
• Using “bigger,” “smaller,” and “the same” to describe differences between collections of objects
• Using informal language to describe shapes
• Recognizing when a story involves mathematics

Young children are natural researchers. When they arrive in preschool, they enter into a learning community where questions are welcomed, thinking is made visible, and ideas are explored together. Through hands-on investigation, rich materials, and the power of imagination, children begin to make sense of the world around them.

Teachers intentionally nurture this process by preserving and extending children’s natural strategies for learning. We support their creativity, sustain their curiosity, and foster a sense of wonder about the unknown. Often, the questions children ask are big and beautifully unanswerable—these questions become the starting points for meaningful research, dialogue, and discovery.

In this environment, learning is democratic. Every voice matters, and differences in perspective are seen as opportunities for deeper thinking. Children are encouraged to listen closely, to be curious about ideas that are not their own, and to explore multiple possibilities. Through this collaborative inquiry, children come to see that learning is not about finding the right answer—it’s about the joy of asking, wondering, and constructing understanding together.

Preschoolers play outside each day around campus, including on the playground and in the Fir Grove. They participate in wellness class twice a week where there is a focus on developing their physical, intellectual, social, and emotional selves. In Wellness, preschoolers learn how to participate cooperatively in physical activities while developing skill, control, and coordination.