Early Childhoood Curriculum

	Social/Emotional Development
	In this area of development children are provided with daily opportunities that introduce and reinforce sharing, taking turns and verbally communicating with others. The activities presented through story time, group movement games, circle time activities plus indoor and outdoor play all help foster the above concepts as the children work together to develop friendships, engage in conversations and learn to problem solve when conflicts do arise.

	Academic Readiness
	During the course of the school year the children in the Early Childhood program are introduced to the alphabet for letter recognition, story sequencing, counting and numeral recognition through ten, opposites, basic shape recognition, simple graphing and patterning. These introductions are achieved through a combination of group activities and independent work time. The wide variety of activities and hands on experiences challenge the creativity of the young child and help him to embrace learning as fun.

	Physical Development
	The Early Childhood program is designed to foster motor development within each child. We present a balance of gross and fine motor activities that give each child experiences in lacing, cutting, coloring, painting, block building, puzzle making and tricycle riding plus running, jumping and climbing.

	Music
	Singing and song repertoire constitute the basis of E.C. music classes. Much of the movement, simple dances, acting out activities, miming, and rhythmic actions which the children engage in, are connected with songs. Songs transmit culture, history, and the richness of shared human experiences, values, and feelings. Through music, the children celebrate the seasons, and observe in some meaningful way the traditional Holidays and Festivals. Special emphasis is placed on agricultural cycles since Barnesville School is located in the Agricultural Reserve; thus, farm animals are a favorite subject in E.C. music! In addition to singing, the E.C. music curriculum involves the exploration of musical instruments and how they make sounds. Objectives: to follow “picture” symbols on the staff which show melodic direction and rhythm to move appropriately to music: miming, acting out, and dancing to make rhythmic sounds to accompany singing to learn nursery rhymes (Mother Goose) to sing with dynamic variety (loud vs. soft) to perform on stage for an audience to develop a rich vocabulary, and a feeling for poetry to have fun! to develop appreciation of beauty and a sense of what is aesthetically pleasing and lovely

	Library
	The EC Library experience begins in December with class visits by the librarian. The librarian presents a story time that revolves around a story box that features the week’s book and related activities. The librarian also brings a selection of books for classroom sharing based on the story time theme. At the beginning of the third trimester the students are introduced to the library and come to the library for their weekly story time. Books are on display on the library tables based on the story time theme and checked out to the teacher for classroom sharing.   Objectives: To instill in students a love of books To develop good listening skills To share ideas in book discussion To appreciate the illustrations in picture books