During the preschool age, children really start developing skills which a learned in problem-solving. Three-year-olds are beginning to understand their own creativity and how it may be used in completing tasks. Additionally, they begin to use logical thinking to differentiate between group and singular objects. During this New York preschool program at Ivy Prep Early Learning Academy, your 3 years old can continue to develop learning strategies that he or she can utilize in PreKindergarten and beyond!
Curriculum for the Preschool Program
3-4-year-olds can benefit from the M.A.S.T.E.R.S. curriculum we utilize in all of our preschool classrooms. This acronym stands for Making Academic Strides Towards Ensuring Readiness & Success because it’s meant to prepare children for their future in grade school. The curriculum is designed for our teachers to assess and document what each child has learned. These observations are the foundation of lesson planning which allows your child to progress naturally on their developmental path. Typically, age is used as a general guideline when assessing a child’s skills. The problem with using this guideline is that it does not allow for the variability of the skills, talents, and interests a child has. At Ivy Prep Early Learning Academy, we embrace each child’s individuality, which is why activities in this curriculum contain multiple goals that relate to different developmental areas. These areas include:
-Cognitive and General Knowledge
-Social and Emotional Development
-Language, Communication, and Literacy
-Approaches to Learning
-Physical Well Being, Health, and Motor Development
Tracking Your Child’s Development
Along with tracking the above, we will also track to make sure your child is developing socially, cognitively, physically, and verbally with his/her age group.
Social development is tracked by making sure your child:
- Communicates with adults about recent activities
- Shows enthusiasm for the company of other children
- Makes and maintains a friendship with at least one other child
- Takes turns during play with peers
- Communicates with other children to solve problems
- Approaches other children positively
- Seeks out other children to play with
- Follows familiar routines
- Begins to transition between activities
- Asks simple questions
Your child’s communicative development will be tracked by making sure he/she:
- Asks “w” questions
- Asks others for information
- Seeks and takes pleasure in new skills and experiences
- Asks to join in play
- Selects new activities during play time
- Wants to favorite activities over and over again
- Focuses on tasks of interest to him/her
- Seeks assistance when encountering a problem
- Expresses ideas through art, construction, movement, or music
- Responds appropriately to a request
- Identifies all body parts
- Uses new vocabulary in everyday experiences
- Uses three to four-word sentences with noun and verb
- Uses adjectives in phrases
- Follows multi-step directions
- Beings to recall parts of a story
- Requests to hear familiar stories
- Predicts what will happen next
- Changes intonation and tone to communicate meaning
- Speaks clearly enough to be understood
- Follows nonverbal directions
- Participates and creates songs, rhymes, and games that play with sounds of language
- Recites all letters of the alphabet
- Knows the first and last page of a book
- Uses pictures to predict a story
- Expresses the title of a favorite book
- Begins to write name
A child’s physical health is measured by how he or she:
- Walks runs, navigates obstacles and corners
- Climbs on play equipment
- Hops forward on one foot without losing balance
- Eats with utensils
- Stacks, sorts, and strings, items
- Copies shapes and geometric designs
- Begins to use a pincer grasp
- Demonstrates awareness of own body in space
- Participates in different physical activities
Finally, a three-year old’s cognitive development is tracked according to how a child:
- Expresses beginning understanding of cause and effect
- Shows understanding of same and different
- Generalizes ideas based on past experiences
- Applies new information or vocabulary to an activity
- Tries several methods to solve a problem before asking for assistance
- Draws or scribbles and explains what the drawing is
- Names some numerals
- Differentiates some letters from numerals
- Increasing understanding of duration of time
- Compares the size of various everyday objects
- Estimates size
- Creates or copies all simple shapes
- Sorts objects by one or more characteristic
- Identifies categories of objects
- Place objects in a specific order
- Uses all five senses
- Asks questions and finds answer through active exploration
- Identifies things as living or nonliving based on characteristics
- Identifies the weather
Ivy Prep Locations Which Offer the Preschool Program
