Preschool
St. Michael Preschool
St. Michael Preschool offers a warm, welcoming Christian environment for your child to grow socially, academically and emotionally. We provide opportunities for your child to be challenged and engaged in activities centered around our Catholic values and age-appropriate skills.
Philosophy
Saint Michael Preschool has a hands-on philosophy, which means we provide an environment rich in activities the children can experience. The most effective learning setting for young children requires activities and concrete experiences. This approach allows children to become involved in learning, and it is exciting and challenging. Children acquire knowledge and thinking skills and then utilize them in problem solving. Children learn through play and their social environment.
Curriculum
SMS’s Preschool curriculum is developed to engage children in activities and experiences that will provide them with the building blocks necessary for the child to grow intellectually, socially, emotionally and physically. Our program provides skills in pre-reading, math, language arts and writing to prepare the children for Kindergarten. At the same time, we are immersed in an environment rich in our Catholic Faith to provide spiritual growth and social skills.
We incorporate activities which involve science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills into our curriculum on a regular basis. We use fun, experiential learning activities to begin to teach these important skills in an age-appropriate way. For example, one of our STEM challenges is, “How Strong is Spaghetti?” Each student holds a piece of spaghetti (uncooked), and we discuss the properties of the spaghetti. The children discover how easily they can break it. Can a piece of spaghetti hold up a book? We try. Next, the children incorporate blocks and spread several pieces of spaghetti across the blocks. We stack books on top, and keep stacking and stacking until the spaghetti starts to bow. We discuss how engineers need to experiment with different materials when doing a project to see which are appropriate for use.
Another STEM lesson involves learning about apples. We discuss ways to cut an apple, such as with knives or an apple corer (simple kitchen tools are recognized in physics as simple machines, and both of these tools are examples of wedges). Using the apple corer with the teacher’s assistance, students learn about pressure as it is used to cut through the apple. Math is integrated by discussing the shape of the apple before we cut it, and the shapes of the pieces afterward. We count how many apple wedges we have – does everyone have the same amount? Does everyone have the same amount of seeds? Who has more, who has less? This lesson comes to life when we take a field trip to the apple orchard, to learn about how apples are grown and harvested, how apple cider is made, and how bees make honey!
St. Michael Preschool students attend gym class and computer class weekly. The children have daily experience with music and fingerplays. There are opportunities to work with the older grades for partner projects – our preschoolers love their older “buddies”, and the older children are great role models. We schedule field trips throughout the year, and there are many opportunities for parent involvement in our program.
Graduation
The 4-5 Preschool program celebrates the children at the end of the year with a Graduation ceremony, marking their move up to Kindergarten. The children perform some of the songs from the year and “show off” some of the skills they have developed. We share in light refreshments, and memories and stories from our preschool year. It is a wonderful and emotional evening for our parents and teachers to share in the growth and development of these children!
Schedule
3-4 Preschool Program meets Monday through Wednesday from 12:30 to 3:00 pm.
Children must be 3 by August 1 and potty-trained
4-5 Preschool Program meets Monday through Friday from 8:30 to 11:00 am.
Children must be 4 by August 1
