The Charlotte Jewish News - January 2015 - Page 15
Forget What Others Say, A Child’s Work is Play
By Brooke Amo
How does one go about finding
a eurrieulum that eustom fits their
sehools teaehers, students, and
philosophy? How do you take the
beautiful oeeurrenees and aetivi-
ties that the ehildren partieipate in
eaeh day and try and fit them into
a neat little box or teaeher man
ual? In my opinion, the answer is
you ean’t. After years of raeking
my brain on how to marry what
our amazing teaehers already do,
and keep up with the inereasing
aeademie demands on presehool
ehildren, I believe we already
have the answer. We don’t need to
ehange how we teaeh or what we
teaeh, we need to ehange how we
eommunieate what we teaeh so
people know why what we do is
best praetiee for presehoolers.
At The Charlotte Jewish Pre
sehool we learn through play.
Sounds as simple as it gets,
doesn’t it? Well, the faet of the
matter is that it is that simple for
the students. The students skip
through the CJP doors, they enter
their rooms and they start playing.
Then (aeeording to the students),
they eat luneh and then they play
again. For the teaehers it is a dif
ferent story. As professionals, our
teaehers know that ehildren learn
through earefully designed play. It
all lies within our eurrieulum
framework and the environment
we faeilitate. This framework is
flexible, developmentally appro
priate, and relevant to presehool
ers. We have a set of objeetives
that we teaeh to our students in
various eontexts to inelude vari
ous intelligenees. These goals are
our end game. It is what we strive
for eaeh ehild to learn before they
leave our sehool and move on to
enter Kindergarten. Here are some
examples of our eurrieular goals:
Social/Emotional Goals
*eultivate, engage and sustain
positive relationships with adults
and peers
*demonstrate self-direetion and
independenee
Literacy Goals
*deteet rhyme and alliteration
*develop knowledge of the al
phabet and alphabetie prineiples
Language Goals
*demonstrate reeeptive and ex
pressive language skills and eom-
munieation strategies
Gross motor
*develop motor planning and
eontrol
Fine motor
*utilize various tools for writ
ing and drawing
Mathematical Goals
*develop number eoneepts and
number sense
*explore spatial relationships
Science Goals
*identify weather seasons and
Creative minds have always
been known to survive any
kind of bad training.
-Anna Freud
to ereate lessons that eonneet to
eaeh students’ multiple intelli
genees: linguistie, logieal-mathe-
matieal, naturalist, spatial,
bodily-kinesthetie, musieal, inter
personal, intrapersonal.
Our highly-qualified teaehers
at The Charlotte Jewish Presehool
work tirelessly to keep our stu
dents engaged in learning and
more importantly assist in devel
oping them into mensehes.
Through teamwork and eollabora-
tion our teaehers nurture an envi
ronment in whieh learning is
organie, whether in subtle or overt
ways. In the meantime, our stu
dents love eoming to sehool
where they “play” all day.
The Charlotte Jewish Presehool
Open House and Open Enroll
ment for the 2015-2016 sehool
year on Wednesday, January 14 at
9:30 AM. For more information,
please eontaet Alyson Kalik at
704-944-6776 or akalik@shalom-
eharlotte.org. ^
Charlotte Jewish
Preschool
LtAHN . CHOW ■ CONNECT
diseuss the effeets on our lives
*explore various animals, habi
tats, and life eyeles
Cognition Goals
*explore eause and effeet
*apply knowledge of experi-
enee to need eontext
Judaica
*Chagim - explore Jewish rit
uals, Torah teaehings, traditions
and eulture through the eelebra-
tion of Jewish holidays
Beeause students develop dif
ferently, we do not plaee deadlines
on speeifie aeeomplishments.
However, we do use indieators to
aid us in identifying students’
strengths and weaknesses so that
we ean work with eaeh ehild on
their individual needs. How do we
get there? Creativity, hard work,
eareful planning, and exeeution is
the way. Every team (our teams
are made up of lead teaehers at
eaeh age-level) at the CJP has a
planning session onee a month.
During this time eollaborate best
praetiees while taking the themes
and weave them through the goals
above. Planning promotes eonsis-
teney and teamwork throughout
the sehool. It also takes the vast
amount of knowledge and experi-
enee that our teaehers have and
“spreads the wealth.”
CJP uses thematie units for an
array of reasons. We believe a
eommon theme keeps student
learning foeused on a broad eon-
eept while touehing on speeifie
knowledge and skills throughout.
It is also a belief that teaehing the-
matieally is motivational for both
ehildren and teaehers. It allows
both teaehers and ehildren to re
ally delve into a eontent area,
making it more exeiting for teaeh
ers to teaeh and students to learn.
We make our delivery through
themes so we integrate eontent
areas in a way that makes sense to
ehildren (through play). This in
turn provides them with a more
rieh understanding of a subjeet
and more meaning, and a ton of
fun! Furthermore, teaehing the-
matieally ehallenges our teaehers
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