STEPPING STONE SCHOOL
Interactive Classroom
“The space we live in has a powerful influence over us, particularly the space we grew up in…
The spaces that early child care educators create for children seem to hold enduring memories for them that have a powerful influence on what they will value later in life.”–Susan Fraser, Authentic Childhood, 2000
Stepping Stone School supports children in choosing meaningful and challenging work that captures their interest, leading to engagement, intrinsic motivation, sustained attention, and a sense of responsibility to oneself and others, just as Dr. Maria Montessori’s research and work with children found more than a century ago.
The careful and thoughtful design and layout of our classrooms directly relates to our children being free to move around and explore with teachers guiding them to keep them on the path to learning, and ensure the classroom environment is respectful, orderly and productive. These free periods of time facilitates the development of coordination, concentration and independence.
Writing and Literacy Readiness
Emotional & Social Development
Multicultural and Anti-Bias
Art & Creative Expression
Cognitive & Phonological Development
Kindness and Empathy Focus
Mathmatical & Scientific Concepts
Physical Development
Reading
Life Skills
Writing & Literacy Readiness
- Children connect new knowledge with existing information to gain better understanding of concepts.
- Teachers use 3 important strategies; modeling, giving cues and asking questions.
- Print awareness and concepts developed through our exclusive Platinum Learning for LifeTM curriculum.
- Activities and opportunities provided to associate and practice letter sound connections and phonological awareness.
- Classrooms filled with print rich materials.
Cognitive & Phonological Development
- Learning opportunities and enlightened environments create meaningful and complex cognitive growth.
- Clarifying language and open-ended questions, modeling appropriate language and sentence structure.
- Print rich environments allow children to integrate new information into their current framework.
- Children encouraged to investigate and reorganize their current knowledge base for further development.
- Narratives and multi-step instructions used to provide children with opportunities to expand learning.
Multicultural and Anti-Bias
- Group activities allow children to practice and learn social skills, fostering respect.
- Servant leadership and philanthropy modeled, practiced and encouraged.
- Multi- language and cultural integration develop cultural awareness and cultural sensitivity.
- Multi-cultural rich print materials and toys provided.
Mathmatical & Scientific Concepts
- Children engage in hands-on learning.
- Open ended and clarifying questions enhance critical thinking.
- Learning encouraged to foster math and science understanding.
- Cause and effect, one to one number correspondence, and sorting opportunities provided.
Emotional & Social Development
- Guided play develops adult to child and child to child relationships.
- Joyful learning opportunities provide active involvement.
- Dramatic play experiences deepen social and emotional development.
- Independence, self-reliance and self-regulation developed through play.
- Monthly Character Skills used as opportunities to create a deep understanding of character traits.
Kindness and Empathy Focus
- Opportunities for critical thinking and problem solving, and reinforcing character traits.
- Children engage in imaginary play and games to allow growth of abstract thought.
- Cooperation and social etiquette opportunities abound.
- Books featuring character traits provided and read to children.
- Famous leaders introduced to illustrate character traits.
- Perspective taking and moral reasoning encouraged through collaboration and cooperation with peers.
Art & Creative Expression
- Children expand their creative interests through the introduction of famous artists, engineers, architects, builders and their works.
- Open ended art provides opportunities to explore imagination and creativity.
- Musical and rhythmic identification and recognition encouraged through the use of musical instruments and on-site music program.
Physical Development
- Children engage in gross and fine motor activities expanding their physical development.
- Advanced and individualized skill opportunities provided.
- Gross and fine motor progression developed through appropriate adult support, graduating to skill mastery.
- Family style lunch and healthy eating practices ensure children gain positive habits.
Life Skills
- Life Skills education supports independence by teaching age-appropriate skills.
- Children practice self-regulation and self-advocacy by identifying and responding to their own emotions.
- Learning to problem-solve to discover solutions to navigate daily circumstances.
- Children practice important hygiene and health-related activities developing positive habits of daily living from a young age.
- Children develop skills which support the classroom community through the care and respect of the classroom environment.
Reading
- Daily read-alouds invite children to interact with a story, introduces new vocabulary and motivates children to read.
- Daily book reading invites children to respectfully interact with books of their own choosing.
- Concepts of print are introduced such as the direction in which we read (left to right and top to bottom) and the parts of the book.
- Children make predictions, sequence stories, and look for patterns when reading.
- Classic children’s literature is introduced allowing children to connect with quality stories which have stood the test of time.