Preschool Village

Early Childhood Program

Zion’s Early Childhood Program uses the Creative Curriculum.  This program is designed to develop the whole child. The Creative Curriculum framework focuses on the children’s social, emotional, physical, cognitive and language development along with characteristics and experiences that make each child unique.  The program design allows teachers to monitor the development of each child yearly as they progress.

Teachers use the Creative Curriculum Developmental Continuum, as a road map for assessing and tracking each child’s developmental progress and learning experiences. The Developmental Continuum provides goals and objectives for developmental progression in each area. There is a sequence of steps that each child will experience as they advance toward each developmental milestone as he/she advances. Documentation of each child’s learning experience at each level enables our teachers to determine what kind of experiences will support the child’s progress.  The Continuum has a two-fold purpose, while providing a means for teachers to see areas in which a child excels, it also identifies areas of learning that require additional support.

Our Early Childhood classrooms are designed to assure children enter school with the skills necessary to be successful academically and socially. Our Curriculum is based on the philosophy that all domains of child development need to be addressed in an early childhood program. Our literacy rich classrooms have a developmentally appropriate emphasis on early literacy and oral language skills integrated with an emphasis on children’s social and emotional development. Our teachers create a home away from home loving nurturing environment while implementing development appropriate activities for the children in their care.

The Curriculum is also appropriate for children who are English language learners.

Curriculum Goals

• oral language and vocabulary
• concepts of print
• phonological awareness
• alphabet knowledge
• comprehension
• early writing
• early numeracy
• social/emotional development
• problem solving