Curriculum

Curriculum and Teaching Methods

Creative Curriculum

The Heights CDC has adopted the Creative Curriculum for teaching in our classrooms. The Creative Curriculum features studies, exciting and engaging firsthand explorations of topics that are relevant to children’s everyday experiences. The study approach is a method of integrating content learning through children’s in-depth investigations of a meaningful topic. Children raise questions about the topic, and through exploration and discovery they find answers to their questions. The hands-on experimental nature of studies taps into children’s natural curiosity, resulting in a learning environment that is both fun and intentional.  

The focus areas are on literacy, math, science, social skills and the arts.

Teaching Methods

The primary method of teaching is hands-on, discovery and exploration through learning experiences where self-paced developmentally appropriate activities have been planned to help teach the topic of study. Teachers speak on the child’s level, tell/read stories, sing songs, pray and repeat relevant Bible ideas as they guide preschoolers to facilitate their learning.

Learning Centers in which these experiences are provided consist of:

Art

  • Process is more important than productDSC05363
  • Develops creativity
  • Expresses creativity
  • Develops social skills
  • Develops small motor muscle groups

Blocks

  • Develops math skills
  • Develops motor skills
  • Learn to share
  • Learn to work with others

Books / Writing

  • Learn to love books
  • Practice reading skills
  • Recognize that letters have a sound and make a word
  • Learn to problem solve

Dramatic Play

  • Learn how to be mommy, daddy, teacher, doctor
  • Develop language skills
  • Develop social skills
  • Lays a foundation for symbolic thinking
  • Allows children to practice negotiation skills

Music / Movement

  • Develop self expression
  • Learn that anyone can sing – making a joyful noise to the Lord
  • Experiment with instruments and sounds
  • Develop rhythm through movement
  • Gains understanding of the beauty of music

Science / Nature / Sensory

  • Observe new thingsIMG_0594
  • Make predictions
  • Learn to connect the world God created

Manipulatives / Math / Puzzles

  • Develop eye to hand coordination
  • Learn to problem solve
  • Learn matching, classify, sequencing and recognition
  • Learn to work together and make choices (helping one another)

At the older preschool level, we stress pre-reading and pre-writing activities. Since young children learn best when they are actively involved in their own learning, our curriculum offers experiences that eliminate the excessive use of worksheets and dittos and incorporates the use of writing centers and word walls. We support a “print rich” whole language environment. Children are actively learning all day and the teacher facilitates throughout. Everything the child does at school has a learning purpose.

Children learn numerals and number concepts by counting and manipulating real objects, not by filling in workbook pages. Children learn letters and their sounds by using them in their names, signs, songs and many other activities that are engaging to them.

In addition to our main curriculum, the CDC supplements with various special activities to enhance the child’s learning experience. These include:

  • Bible thoughts and verses included in every classroom
  • Every child from Infants to Transitional Kindergarten will have Musikgarten music and movement class
  • Chapel weekly for 3’s, 4’s and Transitional Kindergarten
  • Frog Street Press Literacy Curriculum in 3’s, 4’s and Transitional Kindergarten
  • Infant Sign Language in the Infant classrooms
  • Library days for the 4’s and Transitional Kindergarten
  • Storybook Week, Texas Week, Week of the Young Child, Thanksgiving Parade, Happy Birthday Jesus Celebrations, Winter and Spring Programs and many more!

Our Goals For Your Child

Our primary goal is to develop well-rounded preschoolers that leave our program with a solid self-image, happy, confident, eager to learn and a preparedness to excel in the schools they enter. Our main goals for each child are:

  • To create a happy and secure environment
  • To help a child know of God’s love
  • To enable a child to think for himself, solve problems and follow directions
  • To teach a child to listen and take part in conversation
  • To develop a good self-image
  • To allow each child to be creative
  • To allow each child to grow without pressure
  • To present pre-reading and pre-math skills that lay the foundation for future learning