Class Curriculum
The Butterfly Class provides a true “pre”-school experience for children ages 3 to 4. Formal school success is generally dependent upon a child’s communication skills: efforts to communicate through writing and drawing, social behavior, and use of language. Through these paths of self expression, Butterfly children begin to demonstrate an understanding of self, the world in which we live, and empathy for those with whom we share our life experience. A child’s evolving understanding of these concepts and their ability to demonstrate this knowledge with growing consistency is our proudest achievement!
We practice our social skills and our ability to put words to our emotions and to the feelings of others through our dramatic play and carpet time discussions. The classroom setting can be much different from other social experiences children may have had previously. Expectations for working collaboratively and cooperatively with others are very high. Expectations for working collaboratively and cooperatively with others are very high. We foster the social skills necessary for children to have success making and maintaining friendships. We ask questions and give compliments during sharing time. We work as a group in the dramatic play area, taking turns playing a variety of roles generated around a theme from our academic curriculum.
Academic curriculum themes are studies within the arts and sciences, or stem from social or historical experiences. These themes guide our art and literacy explorations. As early writers, 3 to 4 year olds will demonstrate their understanding of literacy through visual art. We educate our children to be visual learners, a pre-reading technique that requires observation, contemplation and communication. Our students create meaningful artworks that display a growing knowledge of our themes of study. We educate our children to be visual learners, a pre-reading technique that requires observation, contemplation and communication. Visual literacy is a unique skill that we believe paves the way for success with emergent reading and writing.
In the Butterfly Class, we practice and refine the skills of communication in effort to comfortably advance to the Sunbeam program and to ensure that your child’s first elementary school experience is a wonderful success!
The student to teacher ratio is 5:1. Please refer to the Class Eligibility Guidelines to see the age ranges for the class.
