Gingerbread House Preschool

Preschoolers are active learners, explorers, experimenters, and artists.  With this in mind, our program takes into account that children also learn in different ways.  Our curriculum is intended to offer a successful experience for all our students where they experience the joy of discovery and develop a sense of wonder about their world, no matter what their learning preference is.

Parents frequently comment how happy and engaged our students are while at school.  The children are on task with a purpose to what they are doing.  Gingerbread House is dynamic, but not chaotic because of this sense of purpose.

Because parents are so very important to the successful development of their children,  we welcome parents at Gingerbread House and we want them to be involved.  We wholeheartedly embrace and encourage this connection as we recognize that it demonstrates to the children that we are all working toward the same goals.  Our goals include the expansion and stimulation of children’s minds to provide them with an unparalleled first academic experience.  This results in these great students leaving GBH as happy, productive and successful learners who progress to the finest public and private schools in the area and ultimately grow into happy, productive and successful adults who make a positive difference in the world they inhabit.

Pathways to learning include:

ART

Children are naturally creative and derive much pleasure from involvement in art.  They learn a host of skills and acquire tremendous self-esteem when given varied opportunities to create.  Our children use a wide array of media to create their works on diverse surfaces.  Unavoidably a mess can occur, but with it comes the opportunity to learn that we all can also learn to help clean up a mess.  We just believe this whole artistic process is more valuable than the final product.  It’s about the road traveled.

MUSIC and MOVEMENT

Music helps to build up the senses.  This development helps to gain a sense of rhythm and to create neural pathways to build up senses within their brains.  Research has shown that children who are engaged in musical activities are more inclined to do well in reading and math, can focus better, learn self control, and are more likely to play well with others.  Our students explore music as a means to enthusiastic and creative self-expression.  Rhythmic instrument games, creative movement, singing, and animated story telling reinforce children’s listening skills and encourage responses to other reading preferences.

SCIENCE LAB/COOKING

Preschoolers love learning things when it involves hands-on activities and food. In turn, these children engage in learning basic skills in an interesting way. Cooking as a class activity lets us teach skills such as shapes, colors, letters, numbers, reading, measuring, sequencing, problem-solving, fine motor skills, sorting, adding and subtracting and the best part…..eating everything you learn!

Children also learn to share, use simple table manners, serve each other and engage in conversation.

PLAY

Play connects children to others in a positive way, stimulates creative thinking and exploration, helps them learn the art of negotiations and role playing, regulates their emotions and boosts their egos.  Play is fun!

CONCEPT

As a team, we want your preschooler to be ready to excel once they go off to kindergarten as much as you do, and there’s a lot they need to know!  Kindergarten used to be the place where children learned the ABC’s and how to count to ten. These days your scholar will be expected to arrive already knowing the basics.  As children observe events around them, ask questions, make predictions and test possible solutions, learning reaches beyond just acquiring facts.

For example:  Counting and Numbers

Our Younger students have experiences with:

• Rote counting, recognizing and naming numerals
• Participating in number songs, rhymes, and finger plays
• Sharing and taking turns during math activities
• Using fingers to show how many 1-10
• Counting objects accurately
• Counting by starting with a number other than 1, i.e. 5,6,7,8,9,10
• Understanding the ordinal numbers first, second, third, etc.

As children get older, they will experience:

• One to one correspondence based on the ability of the child
• Continuation of rote counting and numeral recognition
• Writing numbers up to 10
• Sharing a set of objects or events with 2 or 3 classmates
• Uses manipulatives to find a solution in a number problem

As your children spread their wings and move to their next adventure in life, we make every effort to see that they are equipped with the tools they need to be successful.  We want to see them mentally and emotionally stable with a zest for life, health, happiness and the ability to have a friend at their side to travel life’s crooked path to a stable future.