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Dike Elementary Preschool Program
Our program is developmental. Our purpose is to take each child at their present level and provide them
with a variety of experiences to further their social, emotional, intellectual, and physical growth and
development. Each child's readiness and developmental level will differ from others. Attending the
preschool program can promise a more solid foundation on which to build in later grades.
The following are the major areas of focus in our preschool program:
Social Skills
Working and playing with others, sharing responsibilities of planning, preparing for and cleaning up
after activities. Many opportunities to develop social skills such as cooperation, helping, and
negotiating are provided.
Self Respect
Children have many opportunities for creative play, creative dramatics, working with puppets, stories
pertinent to a child's problems and joys, etc. A child's self concept is of great importance to their
approach to learning and to life. Our goal is to facilitate the development of self esteem by expressing
respect, acceptance and comfort for each child.
Cognitive Learning
Children are exposed to skills that are the basis for all learning such as, being observant, seeing
relationships, listening, verbalization, sequencing of thought, etc. Emphasis is put on these visual and
auditory skills because they are so important. Learning about math, science, and social studies are
all integrated through meaningful,hands-on activities. Language arts is an important part of our program.
We are interested in letters of the alphabet. Our focus is on how they are used- to write our names,
make words, make stories, signs, and give messages. It is possible to drill children until they can
correctly recite information such as the alphabet or numerals. However, for the children to understand
fully and remember what they have learned and to be able to use this knowledge, the information must
be meaningful to the child in the context of the child's experience and development. We closely observe
to see what children understand and pose additional challenges to enhance and broaden this
understanding.
Life Experiences
Field trips, science activities, cooking, etc.
Physical Skills
Many activities to further the development of large and small muscles.
Our program is play oriented. What looks like play to an adult is actually the work of childhood. While
playing, they are developing an understanding of exciting and worthwhile experiences in order to
take advantage of this period of tremendous growth, desire, and willingness in your child. Children's
natural curiosity and desire to make sense of their world is used to motivate them to become
involved in learning activities. Children have a natural desire to learn. We believe in their ability to
direct much of their own learning. We feel our role is to provide meaningful learning opportunities by
observing, supporting, and guiding children along their way.
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