Preschool

Preschool at Far Hills

Language Arts: Reading and Writing

Preschool-age children have a natural curiosity about the world and a vivid imagination that shines through the reading and writing curriculum. Far Hills Country Day School’s Preschool students build reading and writing skills through multisensory phonics-based learning, interactive read-aloud stories, and group discussions. Students are captivated by interactive and memorable lessons, including rhymes, song and dance, and student choice.

In Preschool at Far Hills Country Day School, we nourish curiosity at its peak.

Our students play, explore, and create as they discover how things work, answers to their questions, and ways of communicating their thinking and designs to others, which often include words and numbers.

With deep dedication, we honor the many nuances of a child’s individual social-emotional development. We highlight support of social problem solving and help develop empathy in our students.

Social Studies

Far Hills Country Day School’s Preschool students learn about themselves, their friends, and their community to develop empathy and an appreciation for what makes us unique. Students celebrate differences and learn about global celebrations and holidays around the world. They ask questions to help uncover an appreciation of the diversity of individual experiences.

Math

Far Hills Country Day School Preschool students explore mathematical concepts in a wide variety of creative and tactile ways throughout their day. From measuring and comparing the distances between objects on our

54-acre campus to counting out snacks to make sure that everyone is included, to using colorful blocks to create elaborate patterns, our Preschool teachers skillfully guide students through challenging and stimulating math-based activities.

Science

Far Hills Country Day School’s Preschool students enjoy working with our Lower School Science teacher to develop a curiosity about all living and nonliving things. Students are encouraged to develop a love for the natural world and a desire to protect all creatures from the tiny worms we gently hold on the playground to the large animals we research in the classroom. Our project-based work approach naturally creates opportunities for hypothesizing and experimenting. Exploring what will float, how to concoct solutions that make bubbles or color mixing—immersive learning is the best kind of learning!

Spanish

Preschool students begin their language learning experience with exploratory Spanish. The skill of listening is prioritized above all others at this stage of acquisition. Best practices are utilized to convey basic ideas and vocabulary, providing our youngest student population with a feeling of security, so they’re ready to learn.

Music

Far Hills Country Day School’s Preschool Music class is designed to prepare the students to become musical by being able to sing the tunes that they hear and develop in their heads, feel and move to the pulse of the music, and be able to group that pulse in twos and threes and to react to the feelings that music can give. Our preschoolers perform in three concerts throughout the year: Preschool Holiday Concert, All-School Grandparents’ Day Concert, and End-Of-School-Year Picnic/Showcase. These concerts are age-appropriate and integrated into their classroom curriculum, as well as including songs from various cultures and languages.

Visual Art

Preschool students experience visual art through a curriculum that is multisensory and differentiated. In Preschool, our artists study various mediums of art that are linked to their curriculum. Linking storytelling to artmaking helps to develop socialemotional skills through artmaking and self-reflection and also continues the process of language acquisition. Art projects are linked to the major topics that are studied in their classes, which helps the students solidify concepts through cross-curricular connections. the Library and media literacy lessons are guided by the American Association of School Librarians’ (AASL) National School Library Standards. The six foundations of these standards are: inquire, include, collaborate, curate, explore, and engage. In Preschool, students focus on fiction stories, authors, and illustrators and are introduced to nonfiction.

Social-Emotional Learning

At Far Hills Country Day School, social and emotional skills are just as valuable as academic skills. In our Preschool classrooms, students learn how to recognize the feelings of others, work and play cooperatively, use discussion and compromise to resolve conflict, and develop the confidence to share ideas. The Preschool students actively engage in our Five Pillars of Character—Kindness, Respect, Responsibility, Honesty, and Leadership—with the entire Lower School. Through our Community Meetings, we establish an interactive format where the students discuss

these characteristics together. We also acknowledge students who have exhibited the characteristic for the month. These 5 Pillars of Character are the foundation of our social-emotional learning and are embedded in our curriculum on a daily basis.

Highlights of Grade Level Objectives

By the end of Preschool, Far Hills Country Day School students will be able to: • identify our written language and begin to use that knowledge to be able to express themselves and have an awareness of how other people express themselves using language; • understand math as a language that represents the quantity of something; • ask questions and make comments pertinent to a story and/or text being read and connect the information in books to personal life experiences; • engage in language play (such as rhyming and identifying and isolating sounds in a word); and • pose questions and gather data about themselves and their surroundings.