Pre-K

St. Bernard of Clairvaux Catholic School provides Pre-K students with a variety of multisensory age-appropriate activities. Adopting high quality standards for PK students is a priority at St. Bernard.

Teachers use the LEAP curriculum as they interact with children in the development of language skills by including activities that are multisensory, interactive, structured and sequential.

Components of LEAP include games and pictures for building vocabulary and expressive language skills, phonological awareness, knowledge of the letters of the alphabet, concept development and fine motor, pre-writing skill.

Teachers also incorporate counting and word games, nursery rhymes, fairy tales, and creative play in learning centers throughout the day. Engaging children in activities with environmental print, literature, writing, and language experience charts encourages print awareness.

Another program to be implemented in 2010 is the popular Handwriting Without Tears curriculum. Handwriting fluency is fundamental to all areas of elementary education because children think and write at the same time.

Pre-K students also experience growth in the following areas:

Language
Stories, rhymes, puppets, fingerplays

Math
Basic shapes, size, sorting, matching, similarities and differences

Creative art
Collages, drawing, painting, printing, puppet making, sculpture

Problem solving
Activites that involve making choices

Music
Songs, rhymes, rythms, creative movement

Religion
Early childhood faith formation and weekly mass attendance

Handwriting Without Tears