Program Details

What Your Preschooler's Day Is Like

It won't take very long before your child is walking into the preschool classroom like he owns the place! In fact, most preschoolers enter the classroom and go straight to their favorite Learning Center activity from the previous day.

Morning Circle Time

Once all the children have arrived, our day begins with Morning Circle Time. Here, your preschooler will sing songs, help the teacher determine today's weather, participate in a charting activity entitled "I Spy," determine their daily schedule and talk about what Center activities and journal topics are available for the day.

Each Circle Time has a daily discussion topic. For example during the unit "Art Adventures," the teacher may bring in different kinds of colorful fruit and show the children how to make paint from the fruit. The class could discuss how, long ago, artists created paint from fruits or plants.

Preschoolers learn math and language skills during Morning Circle Time, but just as important, they improve their ability to concentrate on a larger group activity for more than a few minutes, participate in changing daily discussions and experiment with different language and body movements to communicate with their teacher and peers.

Learning Centers

Next, your child will participate in a Learning Center activity of his choice. For example, during the "Art Adventures" unit, a Reading and Listening Center activity is to listen to a recording of 'Harold the Purple Crayon', a book by Crockett Johnson, and create a purple crayon drawing. An Art Center activity introduces the children to the wonderful art of Georges Seurat by having them imitate Seurat's artistic style of Pointillism. In the Math Center, the children might experiment with their own well-measured recipes to create their own play dough.

Throughout the unit, there are over 75 Learning Center activities for the teacher to introduce. Every activity that is done throughout the day is tied to a specific Learning Objective.

Once your child has completed his initial Learning Center activity, he can choose another activity. The preschool teacher works with the children in small groups to extend the Learning Center experience. For example, during the Reading and Listening Center activity, the teacher might review the book and ask the children to talk about their purple crayon creations. In the Math Center, the teacher will gently encourage children to further their investigations by adding more materials to their play dough, and make sure that children are reinforcing important cognitive vocabulary words such as "more," "less," "the same," etc.

Later in the day, the children will come back to the Learning Center to finish a project they started in the morning, work on their journals or pick up a whole new game to play and learn.

After Center Time, the children typically go outside to exercise, burn off some energy and develop their gross motor skills. Believe it or not, our teachers perform assessments outside, too.

Learn more about our Learning Centers.

Literacy and Language Enrichment

Literacy and Language Enrichment activities are designed to foster a love for reading. Your child will gather with the rest of the class to read a story, sing a song and/or act out a favorite book. For example, within the "Art Adventures" unit, one Literacy and Language Enrichment activity is to read the book, 'In the Garden with Van Gogh' by Julie Merberg and Suzanne Bober. When the class finishes the book, the teacher uses the Starry Night painting to build a visual display with the children - they draw a chart with stars, a tree, a sock, a moon, etc. and use the chart to search for the items within the painting. After the children find the item, they record the information on the chart paper.

La Petite Academy believes in using quality children's literature to help make your child a lifetime reader. You will enjoy many of the theme-related books that your preschool teacher shares with your child.

Music and Movement

Just wait until your preschooler teaches you his Music and Movement song. This is a great time during the day for your child to get active, learn fun, new songs and expand his vocabulary. During the Artistic Treasures unit, the children sing a song to the tune of "Wheels on the Bus" called "The Brush in your Hand" - during the song they learn about all the different ways you can work with paint brushes to create beautiful art.

The Home Stretch

After Music and Movement, our day comes to a close with more outside play and afternoon Circle Time. During afternoon Circle Time, the children will review what they have learned, share their favorite Center project and look ahead to tomorrow.

Your Ride Home

The "Car Talk" will give you a snapshot of what your child did that day. We urge you to use the Car Talk information as a going-home routine to reinforce learning, and build self-esteem and enjoyable communications with your child. It's a great way to avoid the "I don't know" response when you ask him what he learned today.

View a sample Preschool schedule.