How ACA's Classical Preschool Curriculum Fosters Readiness, Curiosity, and Love of Learning
As Augustine Classical Preschool (ACP) combines its preschool and pre-K classes, teachers at times adjust lessons so that all learners are able to engage in the material presented according to each child’s developmental stage. We refer to this as differentiation, and ACP teachers are trained to implement these strategies in the classroom.
In addition to training to adapt lessons for different skill levels, the daily schedule for each preschool/pre-K classroom is designed so that differentiation naturally happens and is planned for by the teachers. Scheduled times of differentiation occur in the classrooms during Morning Work; during Literacy/Fine motor/Bible Small Groups; and during Math/Science Small Groups. When ACP teachers consider the major points of differentiation, they look at fine motor skills, math, science, and literacy.
Fine motor skills: Fine motor skills refer to the development of the small muscles in the hand. When young children practice fine motor skills, they are preparing to write, type, use scissors, and manipulate tools with ease. Several of the ways that our classrooms differentiate for fine motor development are: providing different types of scissors for children to use, adaptive pencil grips as needed, and specific activities during small group and one-on-one instruction. For example, during morning work, a classroom may have 2-3 levels of activities set up. One level may instruct the student to use scissors without a “right or wrong” answer (e.g., cutting beaded necklaces), the next level may ask the student to cut in a straight line, and the next in curves, zig-zags, or shapes. All the children are cutting, and the teacher can place children at the table where they will either engage with success or be appropriately challenged. If this type of activity is completed in small groups or during one-on-one instruction, then instead of sending the child to a specific table, the teacher will group small groups together with similarly-skilled students or adjust for one-on-one instruction. Organizational tools are provided to the teachers at the beginning of the school year to help them track small group instruction.
Many types of activities are available in all our preschool classrooms to help young children develop fine motor skills – using tweezers or clothespins, screwing lids on and off, working puzzles, playing with Play-Doh, using clay or glue, lacing, using different writing and art tools, manipulating sensory tools, building with Legos, gears or Magna Tiles, etc.
Kindergarten and ACP programs have partnered together to determine what fine motor skills a pre-K student should possess to successfully transition to kindergarten at ACA. For a baseline, pre-K students should be able to write numbers 0-9 and form their name in the traditional style of uppercase first and then lowercase. They should be comfortable using scissors and different writing and art tools. During a student’s pre-K year at ACA, we use assessment and observation to determine where a child is on this developmental trajectory, support them as needed, and communicate with families if additional practice is needed at home.
Math: During circle time, teachers introduce math skills that are expanded during small group and one-on-one direct instruction. For example, the teacher may introduce AB patterns during circle time and then follow up with small group and one-on-one instruction to work with children either teaching this concept, giving time to practice, or expanding to teach additional patterns.
The math skills we teach at ACP are:
Number Concepts and Quantities: The understanding that numbers represent quantities and have ordinal properties (number words represent a rank order, particular size, or position in a list).
Number Relationships and Operations: The use of numbers to describe relationships and solve problems.
Geometry and Spatial Sense: The understanding of shapes, their properties, and how objects are related to one another.
Patterns: The recognition of patterns, sequencing, and critical thinking skills necessary to predict and classify objects in a pattern.
Measurement and Comparison: The understanding of attributes and relative properties of objects as related to size, capacity, and area.
Science: One of the biggest benefits to small group and one-on-one instruction for our science instruction is that the students experience a hands-on approach to learning. Small group and one-on-one instruction give the learner the opportunity to engage with the material, make predictions, and use their five senses to learn about magnets, buoyancy, recipes, hot vs. cold, shadows, light energy, etc. During these smaller times of instruction, the teacher can gauge prior knowledge and keep the interest of the student in a way that’s different from large group instruction or demonstrations. John Milton Gregory’s Seven Laws of Teaching are particularly relevant in science:
Know thoroughly and familiarly the lesson you wish to teach -- teach from a full mind and a clear understanding.
Gain and keep the attention and interest of the pupils upon the lesson. Do not try to teach without attention.
Use words understood in the same way by the pupils and yourself -- language clear and vivid to both.
Begin with what is already well known to the pupil upon the subject and with what he has himself experienced -- and proceed to the new material by single, easy, and natural steps, letting the known explain the unknown.
Stimulate the pupil's own mind to action. Keep his thought as much as possible ahead of your expression, placing him in the attitude of a discoverer, an anticipator.
Require the pupil to reproduce in thought the lesson he is learning -- thinking it out in its various phases and applications till he can express it in his own language.
Review, review, review, reproducing the old, deepening its impression with new thought, linking it with added meanings, finding new applications, correcting any false views, and completing the true.
The science skills we teach at ACP are:
Scientific Skills and Method: The skills to observe and collect information and use it to ask questions, predict, explain, and draw conclusions.
Conceptual Knowledge of the Natural and Physical World: The acquisition of concepts and facts related to the natural and physical world and the understanding of naturally occurring relationships.
Literacy: Literacy Knowledge & Skills describe skills that provide the basis for children’s emerging ability to read and write. Children ages 3-5 are developing attitudes about reading that will affect their approach to learning as they age. Young children are also developing basic understandings about how books and other print materials convey meaning. Literacy addresses early reading skills, such as the ability to hear and differentiate sounds in words and basic letter knowledge. Children’s ability to physically write is closely tied to their development of fine motor skills at this age, which often varies significantly, and so children practice communicating their ideas on paper in whatever way they can, including scribbling, dictation, drawing pictures, or tracing letters and words.
The literacy skills we teach at ACP are:
Book Appreciation and Knowledge: The interest in books and their characteristics, and the ability to understand and get meaning from stories and information from books and other texts.
Phonological Awareness: An awareness that language can be broken into words, syllables, and smaller pieces of sound.
Alphabet Knowledge: The names and sounds associated with letters. We accomplish this through the ZooPhonics curriculum.
Print Concepts and Conventions: Concepts about print and early decoding (identifying letter-sound relationships).
Early Writing: Familiarity with writing implements, conventions, and emerging skills to communicate through written representations, symbols, and letters.
Through the vehicles of large group, small group, and one-on-one instruction, our ACP teachers ultimately desire to instill in our youngest learners a curiosity of the beautiful world that God has created. We teach and model kindness, respect, self-control, and how to love one another and love God. As we prepare our youngest learners for Kindergarten, our partnership with families and our work in the classroom is a firm foundation for the upcoming grammar, logic, and rhetoric phases.