Pre-K currculum
Dionna Harper, 4, and Trevor Faglier, 4, work on an art project at West Haven Pre-School and Learning Center.
Photo by Jim Blaylock
Various appropriate curricula are utilized in the Georgia's Pre-K Program. Columbia County has selected the High/Scope Approach to Preschool Education. Plans are in process to review, revise, and expand the curriculum as needed. A listing of the High/Scope Preschool Key Experiences follows:
Creative Representation
Recognizing objects by sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell
Imitating actions and sounds
Relating pictures, photographs, and models to real places and things
Pretending and role-playing
Making models out of clay, blocks, etc.
Drawing and painting
Language and Literacy
Talking with others about personally meaningful experiences
Describing objects, events, and relations
Having fun with language: Listening to stories and poems, making up stories and rhymes
Writing in various ways: drawing, scribbling, letter-like forms, invented spelling, conventional forms
Reading in various ways: reading storybooks, signs, symbols and other print materials
Social Relations/Initiative
Making and expressing choices, plans and decisions
Solving problems encountered in play
Taking care of one's own needs
Expressing feelings in words
Participating in group routines
Being sensitive to the feelings, interests, and needs of others
Building relationships with children and adults
Creating and experiencing collaborative play
Dealing with social conflict in constructive ways
Movement
Moving in place
Moving from place to place
Moving with objects
Describing movement
Interpreting movement directions
Expressing creativity in movement
Feeling and expressing beat
Moving with others to a common beat
Music
Responding to music
Making and describing sounds
Playing musical instruments
Singing
Classification
Exploring and describing similarities, differences and the attributes of things
Sorting and matching
Using and describing something in several different ways
Distinguishing between "some" and "all"
Holding more than one attribute in mind at a time
Describing characteristics something does not possess or what class it does not belong to
Seriation
Comparing attributes: longer/shorter; rougher/smoother, etc.
Arranging several things one after another in a series or pattern and describing the relationships: big, bigger, biggest
Fitting one ordered set of objects to another through trial and error
Number
Comparing number and amount to determine "more," "less," "fewer," "same amount"
Arranging two sets of objects in one-to-one correspondence
Counting objects as well as counting by rote
Space
Filling and emptying
Fitting things together and taking them apart
Changing the shape and arrangement of objects (folding, twisting, stretching, stacking)
Observing things and places from different spatial viewpoints
Experiencing and describing relative positions, directions, and distances of things in the immediate environment (play space, building, neighborhood)
Interpreting spatial relations in drawings, pictures, and photographs
Time
Starting and stopping an action on signal
Experiencing and describing different rates of movement
Experiencing and comparing time intervals
Experiencing and anticipating change and sequences of event
Source: The High/Scope Approach to Preschool Education Active Learning