Preschool

Your child's education begins with preschool

Most children spend a year in preschool before heading off to kindergarten. It is more than just a place where children are socialized in a structured environment. Preschool education lays an important foundation for the transition your child will soon make to kindergarten and grade school.

The Pillars of Preschool Learning

Most preschool activities are designed to promote six key areas of development. First, they prioritize emotional and social development by encouraging play and interactivity between students. In addition, these activities help students develop speaking and listening skills – the second fundamental tenet of preschool education.

Students are also exposed to preschool crafts and activities that enhance their understanding and knowledge of the world around them. In addition, these preschool crafts encourage students to develop their creativity.

The fifth area that preschool education aims to develop is physical development. This is typically achieved through interactive games and activities. Finally, basic numeracy skills are encouraged through counting and simple math and arithmetic.

Upon preschool graduation, children should have skills that are well-developed enough to help them succeed in kindergarten. In fact, kindergarten is just a slightly more complex and challenging continuation of preschool designed to prepare students to entry into first grade.

Alternative Preschools

Many parents seek alternatives to the standard preschools attended by the majority of children educated in North America. Of these alternatives, Montessori preschools are, perhaps, the most common.

At a Montessori preschool, children are encouraged to discover their own abilities in an environment that’s more loosely structured than traditional preschools. The Montessori method, which was developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, focuses on self-directed activity. The role of the teacher in a Montessori preschool (who is not usually called a teacher, but rather a “director”) is to guide the child in adapting to his or her environment. Through observation and, when necessary, intervention, the director encourages a child to develop emerging skills more fully.

Other specialized methods used in preschool in North America include Waldorf education, the Head Start approach, Creative Curriculum, the Reggio Emilia approach, and others. If you’re familiar with these techniques and want to expose your child to them, seek out a local preschool that uses them.