Mission statement
Our mission at Imperial Beach Preschool is to enrich the quality of family life by providing peace of mind to parents and by enhancing the life experiences of the children in our care
Philosophy
We believe that each child is unique and special in his or her own way. Therefore, at Imperial Beach Preschool, we strive towards nurturing the individual as we facilitate them with their emotional, intellectual and physical development. We promote the love of learning by fostering a learning environment that is developmentally appropriate where the children can explore with confidence, security, and enthusiasm. Their learning process and experiences are met with success, promoting a positive self-image. We believe in supporting our staff members who are dedicated professionals. We provide training and professional growth opportunities as well as encourage them in creating a creative learning environment for their children. We promote teamwork by sharing ideas, networking, and open communication. Our staff members are caring and nurturing, always maintaining an atmosphere that generates each child’s creativity and positive self- image. We believe in creating an environment that this child friendly while being safe, clean and healthy. Our classrooms offer children challenging play and learning choices that meet a range of developmental levels. We believe in positive reinforcement and age appropriate limits to help child function in their world. We guide children in their acquisition of responsibilities and independence. We strive towards developing compassion, understanding, acceptance and respect among all the children. We believe that the philosophies we’ve established can only be accomplished with a strong partnership with the parents. Parents are the most significant adults in their children’s life and therefore, we create a mutual respect between parents and teacher. We feel it is necessary that parents feel that we are always there for them by keeping the lines of communication open and that we are always accessible to them. It is our intention to always maintain that high level of trust. Two year old Curriculum Two and young Three year olds At two years old, children are learning to share and get along with others. They begin participating in activities for longer periods – art projects, story time, game playing and music. At Imperial Beach Preschool for two-year olds we designed a program that instills confidence, self esteem, a love of learning, and language development. Through story telling, children are exposed to language and its application to the world around them. Story telling facilitates them with their vocabulary development while simple participatory songs and games introduce them to speech patterns, sensory motor skill development and movement skills. We offer them time to spend exploring and discovering subjects of interest to them which helps them in gaining a greater awareness of the world around them. Their learning/exploring environment includes movement activities that promote the development of large motor skills. Children are given the opportunity to climb, jump, tumble and work on various coordination skills. They have a sensory area which allows the children to experiment with different materials. They have their library where they can choose a book and begin the emergent stage of developing pre-reading skills. The manipulative area promotes logic as the children play with blocks, simple puzzles, lacing and stringing beads, sorting, matching, and manipulating items by putting things together and taking them apart as they begin to understand how things in their world work.. Finally, they have their dramatic play area which allows them to dress up and role play the different people that occupy their world. All of these activities incorporate appropriate literature, educational materials, resource material and music that enhance the rapidly developing brain of children in their earliest years. Preschool Curriculum Three and young Four year olds At Imperial Beach Preschool we have created an environment that nourishes the children’s rapidly growing knowledge of their expanding world. Here they have a well planned day that is full of concrete hands-on curriculum. This includes exciting opportunities for individual activities as well as, small group and large group activities. The curriculum promotes self-esteem, self-expression and develops social skills while providing the foundation for academic skills. Our thematic units are carried throughout all activities that promote the development of language, math and logic, problem solving, and science. Their classroom includes various centers such as the Language Arts center. This area is full of books, magazines and story props which afford the children the opportunity to re-tell stories, create their own stories or re-tell events. The math and manipulative area is full of resource materials that promote counting, graphing, patterning, sorting and grouping. The Creative Art center encourages their creativity and self expression. The Science area helps them to begin exploring the basic concepts of their world such as simple machinery, magnets, plant life, animal life and basic matter such as water, sand and air. The dramatic play area allows them the opportunity to roll play and develop social skills through the practice of pretend play. Music and dance are also an integral part of their daily activities. With all these centers, children begin to develop the skills that they will need for school and appropriate activities that are harmonious with their individual developmental readiness. They include elements of literacy, social skills, math, science, and problem solving while promoting a positive self image. Pre-Kindergarten Four and young Five year olds Four to five year olds are able to grasp more abstract concepts and it is our focus to help prepare your child for kindergarten and school readiness. Our curriculum helps to promote your child’s natural curiosity and a love of learning. Through the use of thematic units that incorporate reading, writing, math, science, social studies, music and art, we are able to help your child develop the academic and social skills that will take them successfully into kindergarten. Our unique program includes centers and activities that further their understanding of the alphabet and phonetic awareness. Enriched literacy units, which include literature and extended activities, promote language skills, sequencing, rhyming, and cause and effect. Children begin to cross over from emergent readers to concrete readers as they begin to understand family word banks and become familiar with sight words. Math and logic are also an integral part of daily activities as they learn not only to count but recognize numbers from 0 to 30 and develop the concept of one to one correspondence of numbers. They work on patterning, graphing and sorting and learn to extract information which they can then apply to their planned activities. Children are exposed to scientific experimentation which helps them to develop skills in observation, cause and effect, language development, problem solving, and scientific methods and procedures. The classroom is also comprised of a dramatic play area, a creative art center, music and movement, and various age appropriate manipulatives that help promote cognitive development as well as fine motor skills. The enriched environment nourishes each child’s development as each child is met with encouragement from his/her teacher throughout the day. Your child is afforded the opportunity to grow and develop emotionally, physically and intellectually with confidence, security and enthusiasm as they unlock new doors to their ever expanding world.