DEVELOPMENTALLY APPROPRIATE INSTRUCTION IN EARLY CHILDHOOD
"Developmentally Appropriate” is a term that refers to choosing and adjusting curriculum and teaching methods in order to “meet each child where he or she is developmentally.” It is not a cookie cutter approach expecting that every student reaches every milestone at the same time. Augustine Classical Preschool (ACP) structures classrooms by age group to help us provide the best learning environment and developmentally appropriate activities for all of our students. Our teachers also differentiate instruction, making adjustments within the class to ensure each student is engaged and learning. With some activities, students are able to be more successful when we work in smaller groups.
Our Preschool Class (ages 3 & 4) is a joyful and exciting place for our youngest learners to explore and learn through a variety of hands-on activities. They explore and experience the same concepts of literacy, math, science, Bible, fine motor, gross motor, etc. But we incorporate more movement, direct instruction periods are typically shorter, and they experience concepts in more hands-on ways. They need to move and touch and check things out for themselves.
Our Pre-Kindergarten, or “Pre-K” class (ages 4 & 5) continues to learn in a joyful environment including movement and hands-on exploration, but with a slight shift to a more structured environment which helps our older students prepare for kindergarten. While there is repetition of familiar characters, concepts and verbiage to help learning objectives “stick,” it’s not a repeat of the preschool activities. Instead, it builds on concepts of letters and numbers that were learned in preschool, and takes it to the next level. Our Pre-K students have the interest and attention span to go deeper into phonological awareness, pre-reading and pre-writing. Math moves into basic arithmetic and number sense.
Although we group our classes by age, we still may differentiate activities to provide greater support for some students and greater challenge for other students. This is accomplished in different ways in the classroom, and sometimes by working in smaller groups.
Our curriculum and pacing guide cover the following areas:
Math:
Math concepts are typically introduced during group math instruction and reinforced through a visual or hands-on activity. The same concept may be practiced and expanded during small group and one-on-one instruction. For example, the teacher may introduce AB patterns during circle time and students extend or create several AB patterns in the large group setting. Later, children work in pairs to create AB patterns from provided materials. The teacher evaluates students’ understanding of the concept and follows up with one-on-one instruction, additional practice in pairs, or teaching more challenging patterns. Math concepts are also reinforced through daily routines such as calendar, lining up on numbers, mental arithmetic, tallying and graphing weather observations, looking for patterns, etc.
Math concepts we teach at ACP:
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.
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. Children’s ability to physically write is closely tied to their fine motor skills, which vary significantly across these ages. Therefore, children practice communicating their ideas on paper in whatever way they can, including scribbling, dictation, drawing pictures, or tracing letters and words. These are all developmental stages in the process of learning to read and write.
Literacy skills we teach at ACP are:
Appreciation and knowledge of books: interest in books and their characteristics, and the understanding that books and other printed material convey meaning.
Phonological awareness: an awareness that language can be broken into words, syllables, and smaller pieces of sound.
Alphabet knowledge: the name of each letter and its associated sound.
Print concepts and conventions: the 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.
Letter formation: correct letter formation and the verbiage to support forming each letter correctly (helps prepare students for kindergarten, where they will learn cursive handwriting, stroke by stroke.)
Science:
Children love science because they love to discover things for themselves. Science lends itself to a hands-on approach and we often conduct experiments in smaller groups in order to offer each student opportunities to engage with materials firsthand. Our science curriculum supports children in discovering and appreciating the amazing world God created for us to live in. We encourage them to explore, wonder, observe, predict, draw conclusions and explain. They will make predictions and use their five senses to find out about magnets, buoyancy, recipes, hot vs. cold, shadows, light energy, sound waves, and more.
Science skills we teach at ACP are:
Scientific skills and method: use five senses and tools to observe and collect information and use it to ask questions, predict, explain, and draw conclusions.
Conceptual knowledge of the natural and physical world: observe, describe and discuss living things, natural processes, naturally-occurring relationships, properties of materials and transformation of substances.
Recognize and investigate cause-and-effect relationships in science experiments and everyday experiences.
Bible:
Through our Bible curriculum we introduce children to the overarching Biblical story and its characters. We teach children that the stories in the Bible are not made up - they are true. Our Bible stories illustrate a recurring theme that God loves us, He always keeps His promises and we are sinners who need God. We also teach Biblical virtues such as kindness, thankfulness, honesty, compassion, generosity, patience and forgiveness. Children learn that they can honor God through their actions and words.
All Bible stories and lessons point to three major themes:
God loves me.
I love God.
God wants me to care for others.
Questions? Contact preschool director Ann Rennie at (720) 446-6286 or preschool@augustineclassical.org.