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Preschool

Children, ages 3- 5-years-old will receive 5 days of developmentally-appropriate early learning experiences, Monday-Friday, each week. Drop off will be 8:45- 9:00 AM. Class time is 9:00 AM- 12:00 PM with dismissal and pick up between 12:00-12:15 PM.

Early learning experiences include but are not limited to matters of the Christian faith, self-care, emotions, self-awareness, self-regulation, relationship building skills, pre-writing, pre-reading, math, science, art, music, community awareness and navigation, risk assessment and safety, dramatic play, fine- and large-motor skills development.

Moving to Kindergarten

Students who are 4/5-years old and moving on to kindergarten the following year will receive an introduction to the letters of the alphabet, instruction on basic phonics, and how to write each letter in a small group twice a week for approximately 10-15 minutes each time, with reinforcement activities available in the writing centers. Those who show an interest in learning more will be encouraged and provided with more opportunities to engage in learning to spell/read. Three-year-olds will not participate in the small focus group work but will gain exposure to the material in the large group times and centers. The reasoning behind this is that children learn to read with a natural curiosity when they are exposed to experiences they can connect with on a personal level. At the age of 3, it is not developmentally appropriate to push reading skills when they are yet to have had these exposures. Just as with the older children, though, if a 3-year-old child shows a natural curiosity about letters, phonics, spelling, we would nurture that desire to learn more, just not in the formal group time.

What class might look like with observation-based curriculum and early literacy rooted in shared experiences: there is lots of natural wildlife on the Church campus because we are near a woods. If our class happens to see our resident turkey during class one day and the majority of the students exhibit an interest in learning more about turkeys, I might find stories at the library about turkeys, talk about the letter T, hang the word ‘turkey’ and other related words (ex: feathers, gobble, strut) in the writing center and provide fun, playful activities that connect to turkeys such as feathers at the art station and in the sensory bin. We might spend several days watching for and making observations of the turkey: what time of the morning we see it, what is the weather like when we see it, what do we observe it doing? After several days, then we would examine all the data we collected and see if we can discern a pattern in our turkey's behavior. We would compare what we observe to what we read in the books about turkeys to see if it lines up or if we observe anything out of the ordinary. Students will naturally want to know how to write words connected with all we have learned as they create child-led art, stories, projects, and dramatic play around their first-hand experience with seeing a turkey in the school yard. At three-five-years-old this is what is age-appropriate. This requires a lot more work on the part of staff because we won't just be using a "canned" curriculum that is ready to go. It will require us to observe and be engaged with the children and what they are interested in, research the topics, find the books and supplies to support activities centered around the topic at hand, and then make anecdotal observations of what each child has gained from the experience. Did they learn to hypothesize what the turkey might do next (science)? Did they observe certain behaviors over a period of days and how many times (math)? Did they write a story about our turkey (literacy and writing) or act out a story with a turkey in the dramatic play center (creativity and cooperation with other students)? You will rarely get reproduced worksheets brought home, but you will get these personalized observations each week through our Brightwheel platform along with lots of photos.
Everyone will participate in chapel once a week.
We will spend large chunks of time outside each day as long as it is not below freezing (32 degrees), pouring down rain, or a heat index in the danger zone/poor air quality.
Class will be in session from mid-August through mid-May, following the Elkhart Community Schools calendar as much as possible.

Parent Education

Educating parents is also an important aspect and responsibility of any early childhood program. Parents will receive regular communication on what is considered developmentally appropriate and the science/research that backs it up. This includes but is not limited to informational meetings, books and resource recommendations, newsletters, and one-on-one meetings as needed. As a gift and valuable resource, anyone who registers their child and pays the registration fee will receive a copy of Lisa Murphy's Play: The Foundation of Children's Learning for referring to throughout the school year.

What makes us unique?

Many educational services in the early learning community are touting “Kindergarten readiness” which primarily means teaching children their alphabet and numbers and how to read so they can excel in Kindergarten. At LCELC, we believe making this our primary goal is short-sighted and too narrow a focus. Our desire is to honor the way God created children to learn, at the pace they learn as an individual. We want to be a place that values learning for the sake of learning and not for the sake of getting ready for the next step. Our hope is to develop students who are life-long learners, who know how to explore and examine and observe when they have a curiosity for something, students who are excited to continue learning something new, even once they graduate and leave the classroom. We want to accomplish this through research-backed play and hands-on experiences in a smaller classroom settings where each child receives more individualized attention. We are also incorporating the benefits that can be sown in mixed-age classrooms. The majority of programs divide students out by their ages, so a classroom that incorporates mixed-ages into the learning environment is a fairly unique aspect from other programs in our area.

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