Holy Name Preschool embraces "The Creative Curriculum for Preschool" philosophy for our program. The Creative Curriculum is based on five fundamental principles. They guide our teaching practice and help us understand the reasons for intentionally setting up and operating our preschool program in particular ways. These principles are:

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• Positive interactions and relationships with adults provide a critical foundation for successful learning.

• Social-emotional competence is a significant factor in school success.

• Constructive, purposeful play supports essential learning.

• The physical environment affects the type and quality of learning interactions.

• Teacher-family partnerships promote development and learning​

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We have 38 goals and objectives outlined in the Creative Curriculum that are the basis for our lesson plans. We choose various themes throughout the year. The themes are chosen based on the interest of the children, and are altered accordingly. We strive on continually improve. Monthly calendars indicating what we are going to do each day are displayed on each classroom door and sent home with each family. Each classroom has a dry erase board briefly describing what we did that day. The Preschool Class receive individual notes. We are not able to write individual notes each day for each child in the Monkey and Prekindergarten Classes because of the class size. It is our goal to have one of your child's teachers or our director communicate verbally with you daily, either in the morning or evening. 

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We have an online assessment portfolio for each child called Teaching Strategies GOLD. We enter any observations into the secure site as a record to see where they are in achieving the objectives. We use this information for group, and individual planning. We are able to generate reports that tell us what objectives the children need to work on. This guides us in choosing materials for the classroom centers that will assist learning in those areas. Materials in the centers are rotated monthly and as needed. We gather information from the Child Assessment Portfolio's, as well as the work sample portfolios, for the Parent-Teacher Conferences.

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Below, the schedule for each class is discussed. At the beginning of the year we will rearrange the schedule, if necessary, to keep it developmentally appropriate for the current group as a whole. There are planned activities that are teacher directed, incorporating the objectives. We have focus time to work in small groups. Our Choice Time is when the children get to choose a center to play/work in. Many of the goals will be achieved at this time. The teachers always have a school cellphone for picture taking, pencil and paper to take note of these achievements. This documentation is entered into their portfolios. It is quite an amazing circle of planning>learning>assessing>documenting> reporting>planning>learning>etc. Please let our director Betsy know if you have any further questions about out curriculum and method of instruction.