Primary (PK-JK)

Snack and Lunch
Snack and lunch are social times when a child can converse politely with his friends while enjoying a nutritious meal together. Whether the food is provided by the school, brought from home, or cooked by the students, snack and lunch times give an opportunity to teach counting skills when students pass out the snack and distribute a napkin or a cup to each child. Cleaning up after snack is another educational opportunity where a child’s sense of competence and independence are fostered.

Language
We emphasize the child's acquisition of language for the purposes of communicating with others and being able to express thoughts, ideas, and feelings. This includes listening and speaking as well as emerging reading and writing concepts. We use a wide variety of strategies to prepare students for the world of reading and writing and expand their spoken words. This is accomplished gradually through activities such as nursery rhymes, rhyming games, finger plays, stories as well as puppetry and drama. Students are also exposed to rich vocabulary, phonological awareness activities, story sequencing, and posted words in the classroom. In JK, students begin the Read Write Inc program which introduces them to letter sounds and the letter paths. This program continues throughout the PYP early years. We also concentrate on name recognition and developing pre-writing skills. Writing skills are also reinforced in the writing center where the students experiment with different writing tools and materials, and in personal journal writing for our JK students.

Math
In our Preschool program, we introduce children to the world of mathematics in a fun and interactive way. They get to explore numbers, basic mathematical operations, patterns, sorting, and classification. They also start grasping the concepts of shapes, space, and data representation. All of this learning happens through playful activities, hands-on experiences, teacher-guided sessions, and interactive centers. Students will start using math vocabularies such as more, less, longer, shorter, heavier, empty, full, next to, above, below, behind, up, and down when describing their environmental boundaries and the position of objects.

Manipulatives and Puzzles
While playing with small manipulatives and puzzles, students strengthen their fine motor skills which are a precursor to their ability to write. Playing with puzzles also develops abstract thinking, as it requires the ability to see a space and envision what belongs there.

Weekly Single Subject
Physical Education: PE at the Preschool begins the journey of guiding children toward a lifetime of being physically active. We offer the children time to play alone or with a classmate, teacher, or aide while exploring movement with balls, hoops, balance boards, bean bags, and catching/striking implements. Movement challenges, skills, games, and time to play and explore help our students gain confidence and competence in learning physical skills.

Art
In art at the Preschool, the goal is to become familiar with the basic elements of art (color, line, shape, texture), to experiment with various art-making materials (e.g. crayons, markers, paint, clay), and to strengthen their visual and tactile awareness as well as fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. Various art processes and techniques such as drawing, painting, cutting, gluing, ceramics, sculpture, printmaking, collage, and fabric arts will help to develop the necessary skills for grade-level completion. We strive to cultivate creativity while learning that the process is more important than the product thereby heightening the student's personal expression and self-esteem.

World Language
Students are exposed to the French language and culture through authentic activities such as singing and reciting poems, dancing, and miming in action as in Total Physical Response-TPR, reading books and stories, and playing indoor and outdoor games. All activities are conducted in the target language. At this young age, the emphasis is placed more on comprehension than on oral expression. To make learning meaningful for students, the language curriculum is often integrated with the homeroom core curriculum.

Music
At the Preschool we love to sing and dance. In our action-packed music classroom, students focus on individual skills like singing in various tonalities, improvising, listening, using language in musical ways, dancing, and learning to play different instruments. Through singing, dancing, and playing, the students are introduced to nine key concepts: Voice, Dynamics, Pitch, Dance, Instrumental, Rhythm, Ensemble, Tempo, and Notation. Our classroom time lends itself to helping each child feel comfortable using music as a medium of self-expression, best displayed through creative moments and lyrical interpretation. In addition to these goals, we also focus on performing skills such as learning to sing and dance as an ensemble while following specific directions. A few performances for the families showcase their skills and the joy of singing and dancing.