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Your
children will play London Bridge and hide-and-seek,
climb and jump, dance with scarves, be cuddled and
understood. They will explore sensory materials,
such as clay, sand, finger paint, water, shaving
cream, pudding, pillows, and scarves. We know that
it is not us, but you, the parents, who have the
greatest influence on your child’s development
and education. Therefore, for each child
to receive the maximum benefits from our program,
your help and suggestions are vital.
We have a vision of what our two-to-three–year program will give to your children:
- The first
year is a year of investigation and discovery.
- The second is a year of comfort and mastery.
- The third is the culmination of the previous
two years, which naturally leads the “senior”
preschooler into positions of leadership and
self-confidence.
Children begin
with us overwhelmed by the newness of the group,
leaving their parents, our expectations, and all
of our toys, activities, and relationships. The
children immediately adore the older children and begin
to trust their teachers, their peers, and their
friends’ parents. By the end of the first
year, each child has found a place in the group
that is comfortable and secure. This can take
anywhere from one to six months.
The
second year is usually easy and comfortable. It is like
being a junior in a three-year high school: the second-year preschooler knows all the rules and how everything
works, without having the responsibility of the senior
year nor the confusion of the sophomore year. The second-year children are turning three and four years old and
having a lot of fun.
The third year is one which
always generates a lot of pride from our director and
teachers. Third-year children step into leadership roles naturally because
they know in their bones how things are done at the
Sheffield Preschool, which songs are sung for
which subjects and holidays, how to mediate disputes, and
their own unquestioned position of specialness in the group.
By the time these children leave for kindergarten, they
believe that they know all there is to know about preschool,
and they are ready and eager to get out into
the big world of “real school.”
Some years ago, Erin’s
mother, Mary, told June, “Now, I get it. At first
I didn’t see the advantage of keeping Erin with
you for several years. I was afraid that she would be
missing out on something if she didn’t go to another
preschool before kindergarten, until I started to notice
how eagerly she anticipated celebrating holidays and
studying things like dinosaurs and birds; and I saw
her growth and development illustrated in things like
her gingerbread houses that she made three years in
a row, which became more elaborate and creative each
year.”
We have had many compliments through the years about
our graduates from both private and public elementary
schools. The combination of structure and nurturing that we provide seems
to be a good preparation for kindergarten. We are always happy
to have children with us for as long as we can, but our preference is to
keep them for two, or even three, years.
It is a rare and precious
gift for your child to be provided with a warm, safe,
and challenging place for the years of early childhood
before moving into the demands and rigors of elementary
school life. That is what we provide here at the Sheffield
Preschool Program — and we’re proud of it!
June Sheffield
Director
When planning the curriculum and
daily schedule each year, we take into account the needs
and interests of each of the children in the program.
For example, some years we might have two circles instead
of one.
We design a monthly activity calendar to tell you generally what your child will be doing each day. The calendar also includes holidays, field trips, birthdays, and school parties.
Sheffield has
two main rooms (formerly a living room and dining room
of a house) adorned with beautiful toys, books, and
games of all descriptions. Items are rotated frequently,
and specially themed items are brought our from storage
to match the curriculum. Our library has more than 1,000
books for children. Nutritious snacks are served in the kitchen or outside.
The
backyard is the crown jewel of the school, with a full-scale redwood playground structure complete with slide and monkey bars, a large concrete loop bike path, a sandbox that holds 12 children, a basketball hoop, a sand and water table, easels, and paints for art.
We play
outdoors at least two hours each morning and two hours
each afternoon, weather permitting. Many days we are
outside from 9:30 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. and then back outside at 3:30 until final pick-up at 5:30 p.m.
We celebrate all major holidays (in a
secular way) because it is fun and a learning experience
for children. We decorate the preschool differently each
week or two, depending on the learning theme or holiday.
We coordinate projects with events: pumpkin-carving and scary storytelling for Halloween, gingerbread houses and holiday songs for Christmas, a piñata for Cinco de Mayo. Each year we seek out new and unusual celebrations from unique cultures around the world.
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