Curriculum
Curriculum
The curriculum has been designed to cater to the different learning styles and multiple intelligences. The activities help to develop inquiring minds and healthy bodies. These include:
Literacy Skills:
Decades of research have shown that playful learning, intentional teaching, and a rich curriculum help children learn about the world and master language and literacy. Our curriculum encompasses the development for the following four strands in literacy development:
- Listening
- Speaking
- Reading
- Writing
Success in early literacy in the preschool classroom is based on strong oral language abilities, knowledge of how print works, phonological awareness, and inculcating a desire to become a skilled reader. This curriculum offers children activities that are developed keeping the above strands in mind and focus on development of the following skills:
- Use language to communicate with others
- Speak clearly
- Use accepted language styles
- Tell a short story or retell something that happened earlier in the day
- Vocabulary
- Alphabet letter knowledge
- Phonological awareness
- Recognition of basic text structures
- The functions of written language
- Comprehension
Sensorial activities:
We encourage children to use their senses to explore the world around them. Play-based learning activities such as dramatic play, creative play, sand and water play are used to provide maximum opportunities for sensorial explorations.
Math Concepts:
We have designed activities where young children can actively construct mathematical knowledge through everyday interactions with their environment. Be it building in the block area or sorting blocks by shape, to even exploring geometry in the real world- children will be given opportunities to understand math concepts ‘hands on’. We encourage such learning as we know that while measuring one cup of flour and four spoons of sugar in a cooking activity, the children are learning principles of measurement. Activities such as climbing in and out of cardboard boxes, crawling through a tunnel, or riding a bike helps children develop a sense of spatial relationships (e.g., on, under, over).
Science and Nature Studies:
We encourage children to use their senses to explore the world around them. Play-based learning activities such as dramatic play, creative play, sand and water play are used to provide maximum opportunities for sensorial explorations.
Music and Movement:
We encourage children to use their senses to explore the world around them. Play-based learning activities such as dramatic play, creative play, sand and water play are used to provide maximum opportunities for sensorial explorations.
Visual Arts:
We encourage children to use their senses to explore the world around them. Play-based learning activities such as dramatic play, creative play, sand and water play are used to provide maximum opportunities for sensorial explorations.
Physical Development Activities:
We encourage children to use their senses to explore the world around them. Play-based learning activities such as dramatic play, creative play, sand and water play are used to provide maximum opportunities for sensorial explorations.
Underpinnings of The Curriculum
Our programs are based on a dynamic model which has the following pivotal underpinnings:
LEARNER-CENTRIC:
Our programs are planned in a manner that are appropriate to children’s developmental abilities and support their physical, cognitive, social and emotional development. Although we conduct extensive research in each area of development separately, all aspects of development are interrelated and therefore integrated within the curriculum.
BASED ON BRAIN RESEARCH:
Recent brain research has improved our understanding of how and when children learn best. The human brain is affected by experiences therefore children’s learning changes the physical structure of their brain. Every appropriate sensory motor experience that is provided to the child helps build brain connections.
Using this insight our curriculum provides different activities to practice new skills. The Curriculum facilitates in creating rich experiences and positive interactions which affect learning, attention, memory and behaviour in children
MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES:
Dr. Howard Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences suggests that the traditional notion of intelligence based on I.Q. testing is limited. Intelligence is not singular; multiple intelligences can be identified and described. Our curriculum has been designed to provide experiences that activate the various intelligences.
Preschool Year 1
A gentle transition from home to school without their significant care providers, this program is designed to foster confidence, independence, and social development. The thematic curriculum for this program draws on neuroscientific research on how the brain learns naturally and what learning experiences are relevant at a particular age and stage in life. The children will learn literacy and pre-math skills combined with science and visual & performing arts.
Preschool Year 2
Developmental appropriateness, Brain Compatible learning and the theory of Multiple Intelligence guide the designing curriculum for this program as well. The children explore materials and activities, discover new concepts and build social skills. As we know, children are wonderfully inquisitive at this age. We support curiosity and offer encouragement to discover new answers. Each child develops talents and abilities through play with peers and teachers, and is allowed to grow at his/her own pace.
Junior and Senior Kindergarten
Our Junior and Senior Kindergarten are special programs where children continue the exciting process of building a foundation for learning that will stay with the throughout their lifetime. These programs are designed to take a developmental approach to learning. The curriculum and resources are designed intentionally. The Kindergarten classes broaden the child’s world view by introducing EVS themes like The Animal world, Machines and Magnets, People Around the World, Solar System to name a few. During these years children are introduced to more formalized literacy and math readiness programs. In the literacy programme children expand their letter and phonic knowledge where they begin to read and write short vowel word families, get introduced to long vowel sounds, blends and digraphs. There are multiple opportunities for children to verbalize their thoughts and build on their vocabulary and spoken English skills. The math programme builds on the child’s understanding of number and number operations as well as allows for opportunities to explore concepts like measurements, time, weight, volume and capacity.