Our Developmental Goals
Foster the uniqueness of each child. At St. Angela's Preschool, every child is provided with opportunities to develop his/her spiritual, cognitive/intellectual, physical, emotional, and social, verbal/language, and mathematical skills in a developmentally appropriate program.
Cognitive Development
Children learn best through play, by doing and through things that are meaningful to them. Every day play based opportunities are provided for the children to create their own learning and knowledge. A sensory approach is used to encourage the children to focus on tasks and increase their attention span.
- Focus attention on self-selected and teacher-selected tasks
- Works independently on self and teacher directed materials
- To become more self-motivated and to increase attention span
Emotional Development
Children experience a mix of quiet and social activities in the care of nurturing and loving teachers. A healthy respect for one’s self, peers and teachers are encouraged and modeled. Children who are respected, valued and loved will learn to respect, value and love others.
- Follows 2-3 step directions
- Initiates constructive choices
- Discusses differences between fantasy and reality
- Demonstrates impulse control and positive self-regulation
Social Development
Children have ample opportunities for interaction among peers and teachers to foster self-discipline and appropriate social behavior. Self-regulation is encouraged by sufficient free-choice time.
- Engages in cooperative play
- Practices problem solving in group play
- Leads and follows others
- Communicates with adults
- Participates/shares in group conversations
- Articulates own needs and is sensitive to the needs of others
Physical Development / Motor Skills
Children develop their small and large muscles using teacher directed, practical-life experiences and daily creative movement with song, rhyming, finger play and dance in age appropriate activities.
- Climbing; Running; Jumping
- Balancing; Hopping
- Throwing; Catching
Verbal/Language Development
Children are encouraged to use words to express emotions, convey thoughts and form ideas through planned and informal activities. A “print-rich” environment is provided to model the daily use of spoken language, reading and writing.
- Uses language to express wants and needs
- Uses language often in work and play with peers
- Retells a story in sequence
- Adds details to drawings
- Uses letters or letter-like signs to represent writing; copies letters
- Writes own name and three letter words
Mathematical Development
Children learn math and reading readiness skills by using age appropriate manipulatives. Cause and effect, trial and error, and patterning activities are provided to promote logic and reasoning skills.
- Sorts by color, shape
- Identifies colors, shapes
- Grasps spatial concepts (e.g. top/bottom, big/small, over/under)
- Copies and creates patterns; completes puzzles
- Matches similar items
- Counts; recognizes numbers; one to one correspondence.
Spiritual Development
The following lists the religious education goals and some means to achieve these goals.
To give children a sense of God and to help them discover God’s love for them:
- by using their senses to know and love
- by feeling the love others have for them
- by seeing beauty in God’s creation by seeing that God made all things because God loves us
- by recognizing that all good things are gifts of God
To help children discover that they are loveable:
- by recognizing that we are all different in size, shape and color which adds to our individual uniqueness.
- by accepting the creative works of God
- To help the children become aware of people who love them:
- by recognizing members of their families
- by recognizing people who care for them
To introduce the person of Jesus: by relating stories of the New Testament
To help children form a habit of prayer:
- by introducing simple, childlike prayers
- by encouraging spontaneous prayers anytime
To give children a sense of praying with God’s family:
- by praying with the group
To introduce the values of justice and peace:
- by shaping attitudes that focus on sharing with others
- by evoking a sense of caring for other people
To ensure that students respect all life:
- by showing concern for sick people
- by recognizing that all creation (people, animals, plants) need care
- by demonstrating empathy
