Your child's light will shine bright at

St. Louis Preschool

Why Choose St. Louis Preschool?

More Than Just a Class

At St. Louis Preschool, we are more than just a class, we are a school family. St. Louis Preschool is a warm and loving place where every child is welcome, every child belongs, and our teachers are dedicated to helping each individual child reach their highest potential! Children learn best through play and hands-on experiences. St. Louis Preschool prides itself in educating the whole child: academically, spiritually, physically, socially, and emotionally.

Spanish

Our Early Learners and Pre-K classes have the amazing opportunity of learning Spanish from our St. Louis Spanish teacher. She comes to our preschool classroom once a week and does calendar, focus wall items, and teaches songs in Spanish with the children. Our Spanish program creates a love of language, cultures, and diversity that extends well beyond the walls of preschool.

Buddy Program

One of the things that makes St. Louis Preschool so special is the deep connections each child builds while they are with us. Each year one of the most beautiful of these connections is within our Buddy Program. At the beginning of the year Pre-k students are matched with a 4th grade buddy. Our buddies become a part of our class family meeting each month to read with us, help us with projects and teach us how to be a great kids. Our buddies grow right along with us, as we are lovingly welcomed into their world, sharing their friendship and experiences.

Learning Centers

Children learn through play and exploration. At St. Louis Preschool, children have the opportunity to learn independently through learning centers. Learning centers are switched out each week to go along with our letters or theme. It helps reinforce what the children are learning as well as give them the opportunity to explore their world and ask questions.

Dramatic Play Center: Children learn abstract thinking, idea representation, sharing and turn taking, community and family roles, empathy for others, problem solving, using their imagination, and creativity.

Block Center: Children learn geometry skills, cause and effect, about size and shapes, hand eye coordination, positional words, and problem solving.

Library Center: Children learn concept of print, to tell a story using sequenced pictures, how to handle a book, the relationship between letters and words, to use pictures to predict, to take care of books, and to create own stories.

Art Center: Using art tools, children develop small muscle coordination and control. Children can practice thinking skills by experimenting with color, texture, and design.

Sensory Center: Children learn to use their senses to collect data, learn about volume, size, classification, and properties of different materials. They learn to use and refine fine motor skills, to be creative thinkers, and the explore objects through touch.

Fine Motor-Writing Center: Children learn to strengthen fine motor skills, persistence, attention to task, build muscles in hands that are needed for writing, and for self-help skills, eye-hand coordination, but also sorting, geometry basics, number sense, creative expression, patterning and more.

ABC-Literacy Center: Children develop oral language skills, knowledge of the alphabetic code, and print knowledge. Teachers' direct instruction focuses so students learn letters and sounds while also engaging with the meaning of words and stories.

Math/Manipulatives Center: Children practice skills that they have learned through small group teacher led math instruction, such as counting, shape and pattern recognition, and more. Math centers also enable students to recognize their own achievements, as they can see physical results with their own eyes.

Science Center: helps children learn through hands-on exploration and experimentation. They learn to make observations, predictions, and cause and effect, while helping with dexterity, curiosity, vocabulary, and literacy.

Small Groups

In math, children learn to count and estimate, about number concepts, to count with 1 to 1 correspondence, about measurement, simple patterns, size comparison, how to manipulate shapes, and how to write numbers.

In literacy, children learn to recognize uppercase and lowercase letters, to name alphabet letters, alphabet sounds, hand-eye coordination, exercising fine motor skills, sight word recognition, and writing skills.

Self-Regulation Practices

At St. Louis Preschool, we work with children on social and emotional skills. Children learn how to cooperate and work well with others. They learn to take turns and share while also working on assertive skills and practicing using their big voices to advocate for themselves in situations with peers. We utilize breathing to help calm our bodies and get our brains ready for learning. Children are taught their emotions and how to label them. We work with children on their upset and problem solve through it. Children go over the classroom rules with Mr. Potato Head every day, they have classroom jobs, Kindness coins, and so much more. All of these strategies help children connect with others in their classroom and help promote responsibility and a sense of belonging in the classroom.

Friendzy

The Friendzy program provides a Biblical social emotional and academic framework for PreK-8 classrooms that teaches skills like respect, confidence, problem solving and communication skills. Teaching friendship skills supports students in managing their emotions, feeling and showing empathy for others, maintaining positive relationships, and making responsible decisions.

What is looks like in our classroom:

Read Aloud lessons and corresponding dramatic play

Activities and games that improve motor skills

Sign language

Friendzy memory verse songs

Animal mascot for every unit

Curriculum

Early Learning Matters (ELM Curriculum)

The Early Learning Matters (ELM) Curriculum is a comprehensive, evidence-informed program to support the optimal learning and development of children from birth to five years of age. The curriculum promotes skills linked to school readiness and life success with developmentally appropriate teaching strategies and a coordinated mix of staff-guided and child-initiated learning experiences. ELM is organized around a comprehensive set of early childhood knowledge and abilities called foundation skills that align with the Indiana Early Learning Foundations.

https://elmcurriculum.org/about-elm/

Science of Reading

St. Louis Preschool uses Science of Reading to help children learn letters and letters sound and build confidence in the fundamentals of language arts. Science of Reading focuses on one letter a day which allows the letters to be reviewed more frequently and connect letters to sound using it to decode and spell words. We teach each letter through visual and auditory learning. Each letter is identified using pictures, tactile objects, poems, and stories. The alphabet is learned in its entirety and reviewed daily, then we go back and take it more in depth.

Each day is dedicated to one letter in which we incorporate throughout our lessons in religion, science, social studies, math, centers, and snacks. For Pre-K students, as we progress through the year we continue to grow on the idea of the letters to incorporate CVC words as well as “reading” during the initial day of learning the letter. We also incorporate sight words, we work on identifying and recognizing them in print. Children will build up fine motor skills and practice writing skills. They will start with writing their name and then move on to writing numbers, sight words and other words to help prepare them for Kindergarten.

Religion

Our religion lesson plans are integrated with Friendzy and the Catholic Icing curriculum. The continuity of the lessons makes this a perfect partner to the language program. Each lessons includes bible story or verse. We will talk about different saints and how we can be more like them.

http://www.catholicicing.com/

For more hands-on bible stories, we are use My First Hands-on Bible. It has been a fun and meaningful way to engage preschool children (ages 3-6) with the Bible while helping them build a solid faith foundation. Each lesson focuses on a specific Bible point through a variety of activities in order to reinforce and help young children remember the stories and lessons. In addition to the stories and activities, there are fun illustrations, prayers, and a special Jesus Connection features.

Communications

Communication is very important to St. Louis Preschool. Teachers want to keep parents/guardians informed on what is happening in their child's learning world. A newsletter is sent out weekly reviewing what the children learned that week. Pictures and upcoming events are posted in communication platform. Emails and reminders are sent out as needed and parent teacher conferences are conducted as well to go over child's progress.

Expanding our World

We love showing our preschoolers their world. As we step outside our doors, the world becomes our classroom helping us learn and grow with each new experience. Our downtown location gives us amazing opportunities to explore the world right around us. Our preschoolers take several walking field-trips which have included, the Fire Station, Historical Society, Library, Police Station, and much more. Each year our teachers thoughtfully plan visits to places that enhance our learning. We are always getting creative with new adventures and new ideas.

What's Next?

At St. Louis Preschool, we strive to get your child Kindergarten ready and work closely with our Kindergarten teachers to ensure that children are prepared for what comes next. We get children acclimated to school and how to work on essential skills to help them succeed in the classroom. Our students get high quality education and we work within the Indiana State Preschool standards, to assure that when they go to Kindergarten, they go ready.

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