What do we focus on in Pre-K4? Our Pre-Kindergarten program is designed to promote the spiritual, social, cognitive, and physical development of young children in a faith-filled friendly environment. Pre-Kindergarteners receive a balance of structured learning and free play. Pre-Kindergarteners are introduced to our Catholic faith throughout our day. The children begin to develop meaningful friendships, self-esteem, and respect for themselves and others as they prepare for their future years at St. Catherine School.

What are the Pre-K hours? The four year old class will be held on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays from 8:25 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. and Pre-K4 and More will run from 8:25 a.m.-2:55 p.m.

What do we do all day in Pre-K?

Daily Calendar activities: The children spend time “reading” the calendar and talking about the weather. We learn about the days of the week, months of the year, practice counting, and work on patterning.

Religion: Pre-Kindergarteners learn concepts of the Catholic faith: a love of God, God’s creations, kindness to others, and the life of Jesus. Bible stories are read daily. Children will also begin to learn prayers essential to our Catholic faith. We focus on the weekly gospel stories through our Seeds magazine.

Mathematics: We learn math through hands-on activities, games, and songs. Concepts taught include: number recognition, counting, ordinal numbers, measurement, patterning, sorting, shapes, graphing, one-to-one correspondence, and time concepts. The series called Number Tales is used to introduce numbers and simple addition and subtraction.

Language Arts: Pre-Kindergarteners explore pre-reading and pre-writing skills. Our class using a series called, “Happily Ever After”, presented by the Zaner Bloser to promote reading readiness through classic children’s stories and fairy tales. They are taught that print has meaning, letter names and their sounds.

Science: The children learn through exploration! The children will use their five senses to help explore various science activities. On a daily basis the class observes the weather conditions. We go on nature walks, plant seeds and watch them grow, observe the life cycle of a butterfly with our very own caterpillars!

Learning Center Time: Pre-Kindergarteners have center time. Our centers include: block area, housekeeping, art, puzzles, games, table top toys, library, play dough, rice table, train table, writing, science, and math interest centers.

Music/Movement: The children have opportunities throughout the day to develop their coordination through music and movement.

Story Time: Sharing the wonderful world of books is part of the Pre-Kindergarten daily routine. Fiction and Non-fiction books are read. Retelling, acting out stories, and sequencing are skills that are taught through story time.

Gross Motor Activities: Students engage in activities each week to develop skills such as jumping, skipping and hopping. The class attends P.E. once a week.