What Parents Need to Know

A Parent’s Guide to Preschool provides an overview of the Creative Curriculum for the Preschool level and also valuable information for Infants, Toddlers and Twos. It answers questions about how children experience academics through play and how teachers encourage learning through developmentally appropriate activities. You can check out a pdf of the guide here: A Parent’s Guide to Preschool.

Our Goals

Our goals for all MMO children are best stated in A Parent’s Guide to Preschool, by Diane Trister Dodge and Joanna Phinney, some of the developers of The Creative Curriculum.  Although the guide focuses on Preschool, we have the same goals and developmentally appropriate practices for children from 6 weeks to Pre-K.

“The most important goals of our preschool curriculum are for children to get along well with others and become enthusiastic learners.  We want children to become independent, self-confident, curious learners who can work well with others.  We’re teaching them how to learn, not just in preschool, but all through their lives.  We do this by creating purposeful and productive play experiences that help children grow in all areas.

Our curriculum identifies goals in four areas of development

• Social/emotional:  to help children develop independence, self-confidence, and self-control; follow rules and routines; make friends; and learn what it means to be part of a group.

• Physical:  to increase children’s large muscle skills – balancing, running, jumping, throwing and catching – and to use the small muscles in their hands to do tasks like buttoning, stringing beads, cutting, drawing, and writing.

• Cognitive:  to acquire thinking skills such as the abilities to solve problems, to ask questions, and to think logically – sorting, classifying, comparing, counting, and making patterns – and to use materials and their imagination to show what they have learned.

• Language:  to use works to communicate with others, listen to and participate in conversations with others, understand the purpose of print, recognize letters and words, and begin writing for a purpose.

Through the activities we plan and the way we organize the classroom, select toys and materials, plan the daily schedule, and talk with children, we seek to accomplish the goals of our curriculum and give your child a successful start in school.”

Please take some time to explore A Parent’s Guide to Preschool. This will provide an overview of how our classrooms will be set up, planned for, and answer questions regarding how this curriculum will prepare your child for Kindergarten, and provide them with the necessary math and literacy skills.

If you have any questions please contact the MMO office @ 356-7377 or drop us a note at [email protected]