“The principle goal of education is to create people who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done—people who are creative, inventive and discoverers”

–Jean Piaget

 

Kinderschool Program

Preschool

The Las Vegas Day School Preschool is a well-balanced and comprehensive program that provides our children with a solid foundation for future academic success. The program concentrates on the complete social, emotional, cognitive, and physical development of the three-year-old child.

Socially and emotionally, the children learn the importance of sharing, taking turns, decision making, following routines, and multi-step directions. The program encourages both individual, shared, and group activities that promote listening skills and cooperation with others. Children learn to follow class rules for safe and proper behavior in the classroom and on the playground. Each child is treated respectfully and is encouraged to treat others in the same manner. Social interaction and language expansion are encouraged through the use of activity centers and free play. Emphasis is also placed on the children developing self-help skills, including good hygiene and health habits.

The Las Vegas Day School Preschool creates an environment that nurtures, encourages, and motivates each child to develop life-long learning skills. This is achieved in a fun and educational manner by incorporating play into a wide variety of age-appropriate activities.

Pre-Kindergarten

The Pre-Kindergarten program provides a positive and rich environment of discovery-learning experiences directed toward four- and five-year-old children. Our goal is to prepare children academically and emotionally for entrance into Kindergarten. The atmosphere of the classroom is designed to create excitement for learning through multi-experience subject matter carefully designed for the young child. This will be accomplished with a balanced scheme of centers, as well as with small- and large-group learning activities.

The program emphasizes readiness instruction in pre-reading, matching, labeling, classification, sequencing (picture story), and symbolic ability (naming letters and sounds). Students develop the phonetic approach to reading by learning initial sounds of words and rhyming sounds. They are also introduced to a broad, balanced-literacy approach to early learning that reaches into all areas of the curriculum and will ultimately foster an appreciation of good literature.

In mathematics, the children learn to match (one-to-one), count to ten and beyond, recognize numerals, and understand their values. Sequence and use of ordinal numbers are also taught. Geometric shapes, weights and measurements, coin identification , and time concepts are introduced at this stage.

The children have a variety of planned activities in learning centers that use different art skills including tracing, coloring, cutting, and painting. These activities offer pleasing and creative rewards, while refining the child's eye-hand coordination and fine motor skills. The social-emotional development in the class requires a respectful and positive attitude toward oneself and others. Emphasis is placed on developing listening skills, which helps create a learning environment for individual direction and group cooperation with mutual appreciation.

Kindergarten

The Kindergarten program places emphasis upon the individual child's creativity, learning readiness, personal awareness, self-expression, and courtesy. The reading program stimulates each student to read and comprehend from readiness activities to advanced reading at any grade level. Vocabulary development and comprehension are also a major part of the reading program. Instruction in modern manuscript printing and story writing is given with the goal of first-grade proficiency. Memorization of poems and class recitation is encouraged. In mathematics, the goal is to develop a quick, easy, and accurate knowledge of numeral recognition and value, which leads into counting by ones, twos, fives, and tens. Basic addition, subtraction, time, and money are also taught. The classroom has a rich science environment with ample learning opportunities. Social studies is a daily event with programs, guest speakers, and visual aids, which offer a broad spectrum of information, enrichment, and topics. Music, dancing, and singing are practiced regularly, and the children participate daily in organized games and outdoor play.