December News

What a fast November!! We were so busy it just seemed to fly by. We talked about: Pets, Community Helpers, Thanksgiving, and Tools and Machines. One of the highlights during November was making wooden turkeys out of scraps of wood.
As an ongoing effort to be sensitive to the needs, concerns, and expectations of parents, I would like to provide you with information regarding curriculum and programming at Westminster Preschool.
Unlike older children, preschool age children are unable to learn through abstract or passive methods. Young children learn best by direct hands-on experience. Preschool children have the need to actively explore and manipulate materials and toys; discovering answers, properties, relationships, skills and concepts for themselves. Classroom experience needs to be concretely relevant to a child’s personal knowledge and maturation level. Often this is referred to as age appropriate or developmentally appropriate curriculum, an approach that meets educational goals based on research on how young children learn best. Some researchers and policy makers tell us, “Play is the work of childhood”. It is a child’s very personal way of interacting with their world and learning to master the possibilities in it. The Westminster curriculum is much more than meets the eye; it’s the very serious endeavor of starting a life-long path of learning, and having a little fun along the way!
Suzanne Schneider