PRESCHOOL
An IDEAL Preschool learning day begins with a hug.
At IDEAL Preschool, the program will provide each student with a challenging education where emotional and cognitive intelligences are of equal importance. Your child will be intrinsically motivated and will continue to develop into a passionate learner. Our teaching team ensures all students become optimistic thinkers, compassionate people, goal oriented risk takers, and innovative problem solvers by providing the following five elements:
Trust and Belonging
Each child feels that he/she belongs, can contribute, is considered important by the teacher and his/her peers, and is challenged by high, consistent expectations. Only positive statements and directions are used.
Meaningful Content
Teachers present academic lessons with enriched language, using the eight intelligences along with clear goals and a relevant purpose for learning a skill.
Enriched Environment
The environment is conducive to higher level thinking because the learner feels comfortable and never threatened. Every object and person is strategically placed to allow the child to be “set up for success” and feel empowered. The children are made to feel that they are important members of the group and contributors to their learning.
Intelligent Choices
The teachers structure many choices into the student’s day. Building on the trust theme, the teachers outline parameters and opportunities for choice. Students may choose which activities to do to accomplish the goal, how to do a task, how to reflect on an activity and how to transfer what they learned. The choices provide opportunities to grow in the different intelligences.
Adequate/Productive Time
Teachers show children how to learn new information and only present curriculum that is relevant to the student’s development. The teaching team places emphasis on helping students make meaningful connections – taking the focus off rote information (fact drills) and placing it on the making of relevant products and the solving of problems. Projects and activities are the most important elements in our multiple intelligence school program. Our teachers are trained in Dr. Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence Theory and take pride in their profession. The ratio of Preschool teachers to students is 1 to 6.
QUICK FACTS
- Full Time Student: Mon-Fri 8:15AM - 2:00PM
- Precare 7:30AM
- Aftercare 2:00PM - 5:30PM
- Teacher student ratio in each classroom 1:6
- Advanced Brain Based Multiple Intelligence curriculum created by school founder Wendy Soderman B.A., B.Ed.
- Since its inception in 1993, students have typically scored 130 and above (gifted) on the IQ tests at the completion of the two-year IDEAL early childhood education program.
WHY IDEAL PRESCHOOL?
Recent research on brain development states that the brain’s foundations for all later learning are established in the first four years of life.
IDEAL Preschool’s early childhood program plays a vital role in the development of a healthy, well-constructed brain that is able to successfully navigate the challenges and wonders of the academic journey. IDEAL teachers use current brain research to create an advanced, academic program that establishes loving, nurturing relationships so that the children learn emotional and social skills (EQ) in an enchanting learning environment with intriguing activities and experiences that challenge and encourage students to problem solve and want to learn (IQ).
OUR CURRICULUM
The IDEAL Preschool is an Innovative Differentiated Enriched Active Learning academic program that is designed by owner Wendy Soderman. The curriculum encompasses current brain research and is based on Dr. Howard Gardner’s (Harvard University Professor of Cognition and Education) Theory of Multiple Intelligence.
Performances of Understanding
At IDEAL Preschool each child is a unique individual who is valued for his/her individuality.
The students spend their time doing relevant activities called Performances of Understanding that require higher and critical thinking skills such as explaining, making generalizations, classifying and ultimately transferring and applying understanding independently. The program is activity based to ensure learning is both engaging and relevant for a young student. The preschool students learn through small Inquiry Groups, whole class Multiple Intelligence Lessons and independent “Discovery” Centers. The Multiple Intelligence Lessons are academic theatrical shows led by the teachers who are actors in costumed character.
M.I. Discovery Activity
Discovery in the IDEAL School learning day is unstructured time in which children get to develop both their intellectual quotient (IQ) but more importantly their emotional quotient (EQ).It is an integral part of the IDEAL curriculum because play sparks learning. When we talk about play, we are describing moments when the control of learning transfers from the teacher to the students.
Each thematic Discovery center is designed to incorporate multiple intelligences, to reinforce a Readiness Skill (e.g. numeracy, phonics, sequencing, etc.) and, more importantly, to provide an opportunity to use critical thinking skills to solve a problem ( e.g. sort and classify dinosaurs as carnivores or herbivores and validate your thoughts).
Play is the child’s way of coming to terms with personal experiences in, and knowledge of, the world.
During the discovery segment of the IDEAL program, the educators look for opportunities to enrich play by modeling higher level thinking and academic concepts, and to use rich vocabulary (e.g. teacher will pair the word “water” with H20). Teachers observe and record children’s interactions, language, and thinking as they role play and participate in academic game activities. IDEAL professionals know that a child’s developmental growth is directly influenced by those around him or her.
At IDEAL School, educators are models and facilitators, ensuring that the child’s cognitive and interpersonal growth comes from the “give and take” of everyday academic and social interactions at multiple intelligence “hands on” activities with peers.
M.I. Interactive Lesson
During this scripted academic production a blast of positive learning energy stimulates and engages children ensuring high levels of enjoyment and learning. IDEAL School’s multiple intelligence lessons align instruction with how the brain learns best, creates a brain friendly, joyful classroom environment where all students can learn and ensures student mastery and understanding that accelerates student knowledge beyond early childhood traditional expectations.
Each day, the Multiple Intelligence Lesson is truly an interactive production that includes eight entry activities to ensure true understanding of advanced curriculum content:
Linguistic
Read, Write, Talk about it
Logical- Mathematical
Quantify, Conceptualize and Think about it
Spatial
See, Draw, Visualize, Chart, Color it
Bodily-Kinesthetic
Build, Touch, Dance, Act it out
Musical
Sing, Listen, Chant, Find music to express it
Interpersonal
Collaborate, Interact, Share it with someone else
Intrapersonal
Connect it to personal life, feelings or memories
Naturalist
Relate it to natural world in someway
Visible Understanding
At IDEAL School, the founder Wendy Soderman creates authentic activities and projects that motivate young children to demonstrate true understanding of their knowledge gained from each Multiple Intelligence lesson. These academic centers are an extension of the Multiple Intelligence lessons and are a visible measurement of the student’s higher order thinking and cognitive retrieval skills. After each academic objective M.I. lesson, students work with a team teacher (1 teacher: 6 children ratio) at a table on a novel activity center that incorporates both relevant readiness and critical thinking skills.
Each student completes their creative learning product in sequential steps to show comprehension and transfer of newly taught academic concepts. The IDEAL teachers encourage and guide the children at their tables (often in theme character costume e.g. astronaut for space theme) to ensure each learner feels successful. The student products are designed to be modified to every child’s ability level. IDEAL’s advanced brain based student products are fun, meaningful, and afford the children the opportunity to demonstrate knowledge through a variety of ways, therefore strengthening all of the learners intelligences (3D models, cutting, illustrating, writing, singing, role playing, etc.). Parents and children treasure their IDEAL student products as heartfelt tokens of childhood long after their preschool years.
Summary Newsletters are sent home at the completion of each thematic learning unit to inform and enchant IDEAL families about their child’s learning journey. Please click on the links below to share in the joy of the IDEAL School WOW experience.
PRESCHOOL SCHEDULE AT A GLANCE
- Festive Entry
- Emotional Intelligence Gathering (Home Sweet 2nd Home)
- Discovery M.I. Activities (Play) art, building, role play, writing, reading, etc.
- Multiple Intelligence Lesson/Production
- Teaching for understanding/problem solving
- Music and Movement
- Language of abundance (H20, canine, sphere, etc.)
- Technology (Smart Board, Youtube videos, brain games)
- Spanish and Sign Language
- Visible Understanding Student Product (Ratio 1-6)
- Snack and Outside Large Motor Play
- Story Queen – Literature Appreciation (music and movement)
- Math and/or Reading Skill Groups (Ratio 1:7)
- Outside Play (Brain Break)
- Piano lessons
- Fine Dining Lunch
- Quiet Time (books on tape or video)
- Recapitulation and Reflection – A joyful creative recall and summary of enchanting day
- Dismissal