Curriculum

Our program supports a child's learning through play, discovery and hands-on experiences. We provide a child centered curriculum that focuses on the needs, abilities, and interests of the young child.

Art at SJPPNS is a creative experience of discovery. Children are encouraged to experiment with a variety of materials such as paints, paper, clay, wood, fabric, and items found in nature to create their own masterpiece! What is most important for a young child is the process of art, not the product.

Children explore a variety of skills throughout the year through discovery and experimentation.  Our skill calendar includes Senses and Health, Garden exploration throughout the 4 seasons, Animals and Adaptation, Magnet Play, Space exploration, Chemistry and Color, Technology, Farm-to-table, Animal Habitats.  Science is very hands-on and heavily sensory focused.

We explore all of the math skills that a young child should develop prior to entering kindergarten. These skills include Spatial Relationships, Classification, Patterning, One-to-One Correspondence, Ordering, Numeration, and Shapes. Each of these skills are taught through songs, fingerplays, books, manipulatives, blocks of all types, games, and self-exploration. 

The kitchen curriculum is designed to be an extension of math and science, as well as to focus on manners and social interaction. Children are free to come to the table as they choose and participate in making their snack by learning skills such as pouring, cutting, spreading and shredding.

Our outdoor environment is spacious, child centered, and open for exploration throughout the day. There are long bike paths, a challenging play structure, and a large sand pond with running water. The sand pond is a favorite spot for building volcanoes, rivers and bridges. Making sand muffins and “cooking” swamp soup are every day sand pond activities. A water table with many funnels, cups, sailboats, and containers is filled daily. The mud kitchen area is equipped with a mud pond, picnic table, pots and pans is the perfect place to host a party!  Our lawn area is the perfect place to play games, build obstacle courses, and airplanes with big wood blocks! Our Sensory and Pollinating gardens enable children to observe nature in action using all of their 5 senses and are also used for science projects, and learning about life cycles.

Our teacher share fun and engaging stories with the children each day. Children are encouraged to participate in the stories by asking questions, predicting what will happen next, and conversations about the meaning of the story. The children learn songs, chants and fingerplays, which develop literacy and pre-reading skills. Each day a writer’s table is open, with a variety of materials to stimulate writing development. Parents are available to take dictation from children-a letter to a parent or teacher, a story to be read to the class or a description of the child’s picture. Our Book Nook is always stocked with favorite books and there is a huge, comfy chair for adults to sit with and read to children.