Our Pre-K program at Holy Family School fosters a love of learning, inspires faith, and provides a lifelong academic foundation for success in kindergarten and beyond. Pre-K has a strong emphasis on literacy skills including letter sounds, basic word recognition, and writing letters and words using phonetics and hands on manipulatives. Pre-K students are developing basic math concepts and problem-solving skills such as number recognition, patterns, shapes, counting and measuring. Our class also incorporates a variety of age appropriate experiences including dramatic play, wheel toys, puzzles, blocks, lacing, pattern blocks, and counting manipulatives. Developmental play emphasizes social skills, language development, literacy, and fine motor skills. Students will explore basic science concepts with many hands-on projects and engage in activities that develop large motor skills such as balance, jumping, skipping and hand-eye coordination. Music and art are incorporated into many areas of the curriculum. Our Pre-K program is aligned with Common Core Standards.
We offer full-day and half-day Pre-K, 5 days a week. Please see our Admissions page for more details.
Pre-K Curriculum
Literacy Zoo-phonics is our main reading program in Pre-K. Zoo-phonics is a method developed to make children strong readers and spellers using a “phono” (hearing), “oral” (speaking), “visual” (seeing), “kinesthetic” (moving), and tactile (touching)—whole brain approach. Zoo-phonics uses animals drawn in the shapes of the letters for ease in memory. A related body movement is given for each letter. This concrete approach cements the sounds to the shapes of the letters. Lowercase letters and their sounds are taught first (needed 95% of the time in text), capital letters and letter names are taught later. Students will also be exposed to a variety of genre including fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.
Math In Pre-K students become actively involved with concrete materials and make discoveries using a variety of manipulatives. Over the school year we will work with patterns, colors, shapes, sorting, counting, and measurement. We also use Heidisongs to teach numbers and shapes. Research shows that in order to get the best learning outcome possible, children need to actively and simultaneously use as many of their senses as they can when they learn and practice.
Writing For handwriting we use Handwriting without Tears. In this program we use specific language for writing our letter and number: big line, little line, big curve, little curve. For example a B would be a big line and two little curves.
During creative writing each student has a Writing Workshop folder. Every child is a writer regardless of their level. Beginning writers will draw pictures to tell about their experiences, as the year goes on they will be encouraged to label their pictures.
Science Students will have an opportunity to explore an interactive Science Center. The contents of the center change bi-monthly.
Religion We focus on gifts from God: the world and his love for us. We also learn basic prayers: Sign of the Cross, Our Father, and Grace before meals. As part of our religion curriculum we will celebrate holy days, holidays, and learn appropriate church behavior.
