Curricular Overview
CBI Preschool is pleased to offer a curriculum rich in content and geared towards the needs and interests of the students. The daily schedule is structured, yet flexible. The schedule provides for a variety of experiences, levels of difficulty, and pacing.

Teachers allow time for individual and small group as well as whole class activities. A balance of indoor and outdoor activities as well as of active and calm, quiet activities is planned each day.  Child initiated learning and exploration is balanced with teacher guided activities for a complete educational experience.

Social & Emotional Development
At CBI Preschool our primary focus is on developing social and emotional skills in our students. These skills are most critical to a young child’s development. By providing a variety of situations in which children interact with their peers, we work to build social skills such as sharing and teamwork.

Preschool is a place for making friends. Children develop friendships and learn to use problem solving and negotiation skills to resolve conflicts, practicing these skills in the safety of the classroom. The preschool day is carefully designed to promote independence. The children hang their own coats and backpacks when they arrive at school, set the table at snack time, clean-up the classroom together, and help care for classroom plants and pets.

Creative Arts
Art is an important and daily part of our curriculum, giving children the opportunity to develop socially, cognitively, and physically. As our students create, they express feelings, assert individuality, experience pride, share, and cooperate.

Art experiences help our students develop fine motor skills, promote an understanding of cause and effect, stregthen planning skills, and solve problems: “What happens when I mix yellow and blue?” Children are exposed to a wide variety of materials and techniques. From painting with feathers and matchbox cars to paper mache and modeling clay, children are encouraged to freely explore and create.

Language & Literacy Development
The concept of written language is explored in a natural way as children dictate stories to teachers, “pretend write,” and listen to books at story time. We take a whole language approach to literacy development. Enter a classroom and you might see children’s literature being read and children retelling, acting the story out, and then inventing new versions. This approach keeps learning language interesting and challenging and provides children with well rounded exposure to all pieces of literacy.

Scientific Discovery
At CBI Preschool we strive to foster the development of cognitive thinking skills: problem solving, questioning, reasoning, and experimenting. Science experiences offer real life opportunities for development in these areas. Children experience science through rich sensory experiences that incorporate observation, hypothesizing, problem solving, analysis, discovery, and exploration.

Mathematical & Logical Thinking
Mathematical curiosity is natural in young children. We provide a variety of play activities that develop mathematical sense. Mathematical awareness begins with our youngest students and develops throughout the preschool years as children count, classify, sort, measure, and compare using a variety of manipulatives and play experiences.

Physical Development
Puzzles, play dough, Legos, beads, cutting, writing, drawing, and gluing all help to encourage fine motor development and are a daily part of the curriculum. To develop large motor skills, balance and coordination, children work on such skills as throwing a ball, hopping, skipping, running, and marching.

Each day, using imagination and creativity, the children learn to express themselves through movement, fostering life-long routines of physical fitness. Our youngest students use our outdoor courtyard space and small back yard for sand play, riding bikes, cooperative games, blowing bubbles, picnics, climbing, and chalk drawing. Our older students walk to McGuffey Park where they swing, climb trees, play basketball and baseball, have picnics, spin, dig, slide, climb, and play together. On rainy days, we use bikes, parachutes, and music in our large social hall. Together, these activities promote skills in body awareness, self-confidence, and independence.

Music
Music is a joyful and important part of the preschool day. Teachers use music to greet the children and to transition them between activities throughout the day. Songs and musical movement activities are incorporated into circle and freeplay times. Our music program also includes music classes focusing on singing, simple prayers, rhythm, sequence, and beat. We use a wide variety of traditional children’s rhymes and songs in Hebrew and English to allow students to explore the elements of music and develop an ability to express themselves through music and movement. Students begin to learn the concepts of beat, rhythm, pitch, sequence, and patterns, developing an appreciation for music as a vehicle for creative expression.