Our School

Educational Experience

At Freedom Park Preschool we view the curriculum as all the experiences that children are engaged in throughout the day. Purposeful play is at the heart of these experiences and cultivates independent thinking, problem-solving skills, mental flexibility, and complex high-level thought. In our educational practice classroom teachers and resource educators work together to:

•Make preparations that express core curriculum goals.

•Make hypotheses about possible directions activities and projects might take.

Teachers facilitate children’s explorations of themes and work on short and long term research projects. Projects may start from a chance event, an idea or question posed by children, or an experience offered by teachers and educators. In this balance of child and teacher initiated activities the curriculum emerges and evolves.

Embedded within these research projects and play based activities are the foundations of “academic” preparations. Children and educators are actively engaged daily in brain-based, meaningful experiences in language, mathematics, science, art, music, and social interactions

"The Reggio Approach is not a pre-set curriculum but a process of inviting and sustaining learning." ~ Lella Gandini

Language Experience

Freedom Park Preschool offers “language experience” classrooms in Italian or Spanish. The primary language learning strategy is based on the belief that language learning is an organic and natural process for children. Therefore the teachers communicate in the language as they go about building the daily life of the classroom. We will also include strategies such as: memorization of songs and interactive learning through stories and games utilizing pictures and other visual clues to guide each child in second language learning.

These classrooms continue to honor children’s curiosity and competence. The flow of the day, the materials, environment, and educational practice are rooted in the Reggio approach. In this language learning experience, we will continue to emphasize child-directed and play based learning. Teachers initiate encounters with other cultures and national traditions through food, celebrations, music, stories, and costumes.

Educators

Recognizing that teaching and learning are relationship based processes, each of our classrooms is staffed with two co-teachers who collaborate with one another and with resource educators to support children’s learning and development. Our teachers are carefully selected for their experience and education in early childhood as well as a commitment to the importance of purposeful play, a loving and caring approach to young children, and a passion for learning. To model and engage in learning all staff pursue ongoing professional development.

Resource educators collaborate with classroom teachers to offer a variety of rich and inspiring experiences that provoke new ideas and interests. Working with children in small groups, educators motivate learning through stories, art, music, movement, and messing about with science to expand children’s knowledge about the world around them.

Environment

The learning environment is itself a teacher. The physical space welcomes children and adults, fosters encounters with learning materials, and encourages communication with each other. Our educators arrange, organize and plan a learning environment that is inviting, sensory rich, beautiful, unhurried and inspires learning.

Time and schedule are also components of the environment. A flexible flow of the day is established that gives children the security to explore and deepen their knowledge. Deliberate choices are made to slow down, to support uninterrupted play, and create continuity that connects experiences. An environment supportive of learning allows children to make choices, use a wide variety of materials, move around, work alone and in both small and large groups, engage all the senses, encounter new experiences as well as time to revisit experiences.

A Reggio-inspired environment also reflects the people who inhabit it. Children who see their images, their words and their work displayed in the learning environment know for certain that they are valued as people and as learners.

At Freedom Park Preschool the learning environment is not limited to the classrooms but includes shared spaces – the hallways, library, stairwells – where children not only encounter their work; but fish tanks, turtles, maps, images, recycling, and other provocations to encourage curiosity and conversation.

An additional shared space is studio. Inspired by the ateliers of Reggio Emilia, the atelier is more than an art studio, it is a laboratory for thinking and investigating. The atelier offers a wide variety of tools, materials, and resources to generate inquiry and deepen research and experimentation.

We value time outdoors and believe strongly in the benefits of nature for children’s health, creativity, and cognitive ability. Deliberate choices are made to create generous amounts of meaningful time outside.

Children may choose to take off in a joyous sprint or they may stop to investigate a bug on a blade of grass. The outside should offer freedom to run or to dally. Children learn with their whole bodies and a natural, sensory-rich outdoor playscape offers the freedom to get elbow deep in messy mud, to run our feet, to be loud or to listen to the birds and experiment with sound, to be free to explore the beautiful world around us. Educators collaborate to observe, assess, and refine offerings in the outdoor space that will engage children’s interests, honor their investigations, and expand their knowledge.

Our playground offers opportunities to climb, slide, spin, swing, and pretend with trucks, scoops, bowls, and other props that encourage children’s imaginations to range free. But our playground is more, it is a park, with enough space to run; a dry creek bed to challenge balance; a garden for edibles and flowers; a sports and riding area; a place to dig in the dirt; build; walk and balance on tree trunks; and explore sensory, science, and nature experiences in the outdoor classroom.

"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. ~ Henry Adams"