Robins
– 4 years old by September 1st –
The goals for our four-year olds fall into four categories of growth: social, emotional, intellectual and physical.
On any given day, you will see children engaged in play activities that fall into these categories.
At this age level, we encourage children to demonstrate these skills: cooperative behavior, critical thinking and problem solving, enhanced verbal communication, beginning reading and writing skills, small and gross motor skills and strong auditory and visual discrimination skills.
A Day in the Life of a Robin!
The Robins have the opportunity to engage in play and learning in three distinctly different rooms, the Art Room, the Block Room and the Climbing Room.
The teacher and three participating parents are engaged in teaching the children through play, concepts essential to the development of a 4 and 5 year old. We are in session on Mondays and Fridays from 9 a.m. – 11:30 p.m. and Wednesdays from 9 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
9:00 a.m. – 9:15 a.m. Arrival and Floor Games
As the children arrive, the teacher is always sitting in her chair to welcome each child. After the children place their belongings in an assigned cubby, they wash their hands and join the others in the Climbing Room to play age-appropriate floor games and wait for the others to arrive.9:15 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. Class Meeting
Once all of the children arrive, our teacher begins the morning meeting. She helps the children find out if they are assigned a special job for the day, like feeding the birds or helping set up the snack. They are always excited to see if their name is selected for one of those special jobs.
The children learn beginning math concepts with recognizing numbers and counting the number of current school days. The teacher also describes what is planned for the day, often giving them the chance to vote on an activity offering another counting opportunity.
The children start to develop confidence in “public speaking” by presenting an item of their choice from home for Show and Tell.
9:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. Free Play
Once the morning meeting is over, the children are free to go from room-to-room and play.
Painting at the easel, pretend play, building with blocks, holding the guinea pig, sorting objects, climbing on a climber, cooking, finger painting, or even taking apart an old mechanical item are typical activities.
On some days, there is well-supervised wrestling which is enjoyed by boys and girls alike! Once a week, each child practices writing special words in their personal journals.
10:30 a.m. – 10:40 a.m. Clean Up
This is an instructive time where everyone learns team work and it transitions to the children gathering for a quiet time, listening to music and looking at books with a bonus backrub as the teacher visits with each child and interacts quietly about the morning.
10:40 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. Circle Time
Circle Time is a group activity with participating parents gathered with the children that includes fingerplays, games, singing, a flannel board story or storybook. These activities enhance language and math skills.
11:00 a.m. – 11:10 a.m. Snack
After Circle Time, our teacher dismisses the children to wash their hands before they eat their snack, which varies daily but could include crackers, fresh fruit or pretzels. The children have their own placemats so they read and find their names on the placemats and sit down for lunch.
Pouring water for a drink or mopping up with a sponge is good eye-hand practice. Lots of social interaction happens here with an adult at each table guiding the discussion about what the children did during free play.
11:10 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. Outside Play
Unless it is below freezing or pouring rain, the Robins go outside every day. They put on their own outdoor clothing for play on our beautiful half-acre playground, well-supervised with four adults.
The children can choose to swing on the tire swing, pretend in the tree house and slide down the slide or fire pole, dig in the sand, climb on the climber or play an outdoor game with their friends. Big wheels and sleds both go down the gentle hill and are favorite activities.
We encourage a lot of large motor activities and the children may get dirty, but we expect that!
11:30 a.m. Dismissal
The children are dismissed from the playground, but parents are encouraged to stay and socialize with each other.
Wednesday Schedule 9:00 – 1:00 p.m.
On Wednesdays, the order of activities is different due to the extended day. The children bring their lunches and eat together, but these days often include field trips.
Field trips are a great way to extend in-class learning and fit in well with our hands-on learning philosophy and typically are twice a month. They include, among others, a fall creek stomp and a winter hike, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, farms, a fire station, a play at Clowes Hall, and Peewinkles Puppet Theatre.
Enrichment
Music
Our music teacher comes twice a month to the classroom and leads the children in a music lesson. This is a very interactive and often physical lesson, in which the children learn about pitch, rhythm, tempo, and frequently play different instruments.
Spanish
We are fortunate to have Spanish speaking members teaching mini Spanish lessons. These lessons typically occur once a week and include reading books in Spanish, singing traditional Latino songs and learning new Spanish vocabulary such as animals, days of the week, and numbers. The children enjoy participating in this interactive lesson.
