Early Childhood
Early Childhood Philosophy
Early childhood is where Tatnall’s core value of curiosity takes root. Learning in Tatnall’s Early Childhood division is based on children’s questions, ideas, and investigations, with a curriculum that grows from their interests and connects academic foundations to real-world experiences. Children engage in a balanced rhythm of small group work, whole group settings, and guided play, allowing for both collaboration and individualized moments.
Explore the Early Childhood Curriculum
Tatnall’s Early Childhood division implements the HighScope curriculum, a research-based approach that empowers children to be active participants in their own learning. Children develop initiative and executive functioning skills through a consistent daily routine that features the “Plan, Do, Review” process. At the start of each hour-long work period, students create a plan for their play. They decide what they want to do, choose materials, and describe their ideas and intentions to a teacher or their peers. Children carry out their plans as they play, making choices and solving problems, while teachers deepen their learning by making observations and posing questions. At the conclusion of the hour, the group comes back together to reflect on what they did, share experiences, and talk about what they learned.
In addition to this period of student-initiated learning, the HighScope approach also includes a 10-15 minute small group time led by teachers. This is a daily opportunity for children to explore concepts in a focused and hands-on way with a teacher and a small number of peers. During this time, teachers introduce developmentally appropriate activities designed to support specific learning goals. As the children engage with materials, their teachers observe, ask open-ended questions, and gently guide the learning process.
Social and Emotional Development
Students in our Twos program are learning to engage with children and trusted adults outside of the immediate family unit. Their engagement with peers may begin as observation and later evolve into parallel play, during which children play in close proximity to another. Two year olds learn to identify their own emotions, as well as express curiosity about the emotions of others. They develop a sense of accomplishment by helping with classroom chores and independently managing their belongings.
Physical Development and Health
Twos are on the move, and their classroom environments reflect an understanding of that developmental need. Every day, children engage in vigorous gross motor play, both indoors and outdoors, as well as attend a weekly Developmental Gym class as part of their integrated specials experience. Teachers support students as they develop interoception skills and self-care tasks like toileting, feeding, and hand-washing.
Language, Literacy, and Communication
The foundations of literacy lie in receptive and expressive language, so the Twos program focuses on oral communication. Students frequently listen to stories read aloud, sing songs, and independently handle board books. They are encouraged to express their thoughts and feelings through multiple-word sentences, including asking for adult help when needed. Learning environments are print-rich, featuring labels with both photographs and text, and offer a wide range of tools for students to practice mark-making.
Mathematics
Our Twos classrooms are outfitted with ample and open-ended materials that facilitate young children’s natural drive to collect, sort, arrange, and transfer objects. Students explore concepts of measurement as they engage in a range of hands-on activities, such as filling and pouring from containers of various sizes at the sensory table. Simple puzzles help children develop spatial sense, and large blocks encourage an understanding of basic geometric principles.
Creative Arts
The arts are an important vehicle for early expression, offering young students multiple modalities to communicate and understand. With an emphasis on process over product, Twos experiment with mediums like markers, oil pastels, paint, and clay. Classroom props encourage imaginative pretend play, while basic instruments like shaker eggs provide opportunities for students to generate sound. Twice a week, children in the Twos program also attend Art and Music specials.
Science and Technology
Our youngest students focus on using their senses to gather information, frequently investigating the natural world through their experiences outdoors. They are encouraged to ask questions about the environment surrounding them and are introduced to tools that can extend their observations, such as magnifying lenses.
Social Studies
For our Twos, social studies is all about learning to be with others. They develop a growing sense of identity as members of multiple communities, including their respective families. As they learn where shared materials belong and contribute to tidying the classroom, students build their earliest understandings of geography. They likewise begin to organize their experience of time by categorizing each day as either a “school day” or “home day.”
Social and Emotional Development
Three-year-olds are typically beginning to engage in associative play, interacting more deliberatively with peers and inevitably encountering ideas that are different from their own. Teachers lead students through the conflict resolution process, with a particular emphasis on problem solving. They likewise provide strategies for students to begin regulating their emotions. Children are assigned classroom jobs that build a sense of ownership and responsibility to the learning community.
Physical Development and Health
As children move into the Threes program, they continue daily exercise of their bodies while also strengthening their fine motor skills with the supervised introduction of tools like scissors. Their weekly experiences in Developmental Gym now include rotating through focused skill stations and exposure to the fundamentals of nutrition.
Language, Literacy, and Communication
Building on the expressive and receptive language skills that were developed in the Twos program, our Threes are now exposed to the foundations of alphabetic principle. Students participate in Heggerty Phonemic Awareness Curriculum, receiving 10-minute blocks of instruction three times a week. Additionally, Threes are introduced to Handwriting Without Tears concepts, learning the associated vocabulary and handling the materials. Students are offered a wide range of materials to encourage mark-making and writing; as children display signs of readiness, teachers introduce the letter formation needed for them to write their names.
Mathematics
Students in the Threes build upon their emerging understandings of number sense. In addition to counting by rote, children practice counting objects with a sense of one-to-one correspondence and are introduced to numerals in print. Through playful yet purposeful activities, they explore concepts of measurement using non-standard units, compare attributes of objects using words with “er” and “est” endings, and begin identifying and creating AB patterns.
Creative Arts
Threes students are introduced to elements of art, including line, shape, form, color, and texture. With a continued emphasis on process, the children create using materials of their choice, such as string, glue, paints, loose parts from nature, and clay. In music, children learn to respond to a steady beat by clapping, patting, and walking. They also learn to identify and name simple percussion instruments such as the finger cymbals, rhythm sticks, and handbells.
Science and Technology
In the Threes program, students use the skills they were introduced to in the Twos to more closely investigate the plants and animals on campus, with a particular focus on the topic of habitats. Frequent visits to our certified wildlife habitat allow children to observe, describe, and discuss the changes that occur over time in the natural world. Tools like binoculars allow students to expand the scope of their observations.
Social Studies
Children in the Threes program grow in their awareness of roles within groups of people, including various occupations that contribute to the health and safety of the larger community. They take increasing responsibility for care of both their personal belongings and the shared classroom space. With the aid of visual schedules, they refine their sense of time to now include the sequence of daily events.
Social and Emotional Development
By the time children enter our Pre-K program, they are ready for the challenge of cooperative play and collaborating with peers on long-term projects. They refine conflict resolution skills with increasing independence, as well as advocating for themselves and others. In Pre-K, each child has the opportunity to be “Star of the Week,” during which they present their “All About Me Poster.”
Physical Development and Health
Students in the Pre-K program strengthen their stamina and coordination through activities like short choreographed dances, simple group games, yoga, and a culminating Fun Run with their families in the spring. Their understanding of nutrition now connects specific food groups to their functions in fueling the body and brain.
Language, Literacy, and Communication
In Pre-K, students now receive daily instruction in the Heggerty Phonemic Awareness Curriculum. They engage in the Handwriting Without Tears program during small group times, develop letter-sound association through playful, hands-on activities, and practice emergent writing in their journals each week. Beginning in Pre-K, students also participate in daily targeted literacy instruction with our learning specialist. During this time, small groups of students receive support and challenges specific to their particular needs.
Mathematics
During small group times, Pre-K students participate in multisensory activities from the Get Set for School Math Curriculum. They practice counting objects in small sets and recognizing single-digit numerals. While working with teachers and peers, they arrange objects in a series according to one attribute, describe the characteristics of two-dimensional shapes, and develop the ability to recognize increasingly complex patterns. Children in our Pre-K program apply their mathematical learning as they collect and analyze data, such as polling their classmates to gather information.
Creative Arts
Pre-K students are ready to integrate and apply the skills they have gained over the previous two years in the art studio. While they continue to have many opportunities for choice in their art, children also begin to create representational pieces like still life drawings and product-oriented work, such as pinch pots. In music class, students learn to recognize and respond to different rhythms as well as understand the musical concepts of tempo and dynamics.
Science and Technology
Science learning in the Pre-K program focuses on life cycles, once again maximizing the many opportunities presented by the natural setting of our campus’s 110 acres. This study culminates each spring as Pre-K students visit Frog Hollow to observe the metamorphosis of frogs, using tools like nets to capture and release tadpoles and froglets. They also begin to experiment with the effects of their actions on the environment through tending our edible garden. Students use tools like shovels, rakes, and watering cans to aid in this work.
Social Studies
In Pre-K, students begin to participate in group decision making, such as voting on names for class pets. They take on a leadership role within the division when it comes to service learning, including tracking and counting pennies during the year-long penny drive. Pre-K students are exposed to reading and creating maps of familiar spaces, like their classroom, and formally organize their understanding of time with the use of a traditional calendar.