Our Curriculum
We are very proud of our curriculum at First Pres Nursery School. We are strong believers in professional development, giving our teachers and administrators opportunities to learn about different schools, programs, and philosophies. We continue to adjust our curriculum to meet the needs of our students and use our new knowledge to enhance our strong curriculum foundation.
Our curriculum has been influenced by Maria Montessori, the Reggio Emilia approach and Waldorf philosophies. We have taken the best of these programs and incorporated them into our curriculum.
Our curriculum is designed to nurture your child’s self-esteem and positive feelings towards learning and others. The First Presbyterian Church Nursery School’s ultimate goal is to provide enjoyable, thought-provoking, and creative experiences, which will lead your child to develop a lasting love of learning. Sand play, block building, painting, dramatic play, reading stories, singing, creative movement, outdoor play, and sharing stories are just a few of the activities that make up a typical day here at First Pres. It is this learn through play curriculum that sets the foundation for your child to love school!
Our program is literature based, meaning we use literature on a daily basis to introduce subject matter, build upon prior knowledge, and bring enjoyment to all of our students. We use a project-based curriculum in all our classes. A project-based curriculum allows our teachers and students to delve into a topic touching upon all subject areas. A project may last 3 to 8 weeks and follows the basic guidelines of introducing a topic through literature, gathering existing knowledge, learning about a topic through many different means, using new knowledge to express new learning through projects and finally, sharing new knowledge with others. Literature and Project-based learning work so well together and allow students to experience an exciting well-balanced program.
