PROGRAMS AND CURRICULUM

Jewish Creative Preschool is inspired by the Reggio Emilia philosophy and has integrated important parts of it into our curriculum, facility design and teaching style. We believe that it’s philosophy is consistent with our Jewish values and teachings. Throughout the school year, secular subjects as well as Jewish culture and traditions will be reinforced at JCP in the Reggio way: comprehensive, hands-on and explorative. We encourage your children to use their senses, investigate, and experiment.

The preschool curriculum is based on a thematic approach. Each theme is broken into sub-themes and from these, activities are developed. The activities encompass each of the curriculum areas; English language arts, Hebrew language arts, math, science, social studies, art, music and creative movement. The activities also involve the multiple intelligences, the styles that all people use to approach learning; bodily/kinesthetic, naturalistic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, existential/spiritualistic, visual/spatial, musical/rhythmic, verbal/linguistic, and mathematical/logical.

Please note that our teachers gear the curriculum towards the age and needs of the children. Therefore, the teacher may choose to spend more or less time on a theme.

Pre-Nursery (2-year-olds)

Exploration

We know that all children learn and grow through active “play” and participation. Therefore, our program for toddlers is designed to allow each child to explore and be actively engaged in a rich environment of age-appropriate activities. Activities are designed that will allow and encourage development of all aspects of a child’s life- physical, social, emotional and cognitive. Children are allowed the freedom to choose from a large variety of activities and materials with teachers acting as facilitators, encouraging their participation and stimulating their thinking by the questions they ask and the interactions they provide.

Nursery (3-year-olds)

Interaction

Each year of life brings exciting challenges for children. As children turn three, they leave behind the last hint of toddlerhood and switch to being more self-sufficient. Their focus turns even more toward social interaction and also
toward imaginative and creative thought. They exhibit an ever-growing interest in learning everything possible about their expanding world. Being aware of the three-year-old’s emerging awareness of and interest in
his/her expanding world and also the sensitivity which can sometimes result from this new awareness, our three-year-old program is designed to be a warm, nurturing atmosphere filled with lots of exciting “hands-on” learning experiences that change and grow constantly to meet each child’s changing needs.

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Pre-Kindergarten (4 & 5-year-olds)

Discovery

Our 4-5 year-olds are involved in a wide variety of group and individual activities. Four year-olds expand their problem solving abilities, grasp of language, and memory and listening skills, while enjoying relationships with classmates. There will be a full year of activities to help the children strengthen their small muscles needed for writing, understand and follow directions, learn to count objects, use positional words, and grow in their ability to focus during group times. We continue focusing on the important character traits learned in the younger classrooms. Circle time stories and finger plays, center time hands-on learning experiences, creative movement and the Handwriting Without Tears program are all part of the 4-5 year-olds preschool experiences.

Sample Daily Schedule

All our classrooms, from Pre-Nursery to Pre-Kindergarten, follow a daily rhythm. Our incredible teachers create a schedule that works for their room and age group. See below for a general example. We also incorporate weekly Yoga, Soccer, and Animal classes into each classroom schedule.