Preschool benchmarks


Social & Emotional Learning

What We Do

  • Encourage independence and self-confidence

  • Teach sharing, waiting, taking turns, and including others in play

  • Promote Positive Peer Interactions

  • Encourage the development of coping skills to handle challenges

  • Help children to identify emotions in themselves and others

How We Do it

We provide opportunities for children to interact with one another and discover common interests in a variety of ways. Teachers model pro-social behaviors and give children the language needed to express their wants and needs. We help children gain social skills by using positive reinforcement and looking for teachable moments where we can step in and guide children toward expressing their emotions and resolving conflicts. We foster independence and confidence by encouraging children to try new things, ask questions, and learn to problem-solve. Children participate in small and large groups so that every voice is heard.

Language Arts

What we do

  • Pre-reading and writing skills

  • Pattern recognition

  • Phonemic awareness and beginning understanding of sound-symbol correspondence

  • Early identification (and writing) of the letters of the alphabet

How we do it

Students experience learning through interaction with books and stories, and listening and speaking in small groups and one-on-one. They begin to identify and write the letters of the alphabet.


Math

What we do

  • Explore counting, order and numerical relations

  • Gain experience with one-to-one correspondence

  • Measurement and pattern recognition

  • Estimate, match pairs, sort and classify

  • Use pictures and symbols to represent data

  • Develop a sense of quantity or amount and understanding of the relationship of part to whole

How we do it

  • Students problem-solve across all areas of the curriculum. They learn through concrete, hands-on experiences, and are able to practice counting and following directions or activities in a sequence (e.g. following a recipe).