Pre-kindergarten

Working with their second grade buddies, pre-kindergarten students write “thinking of you” notes, participate in assemblies on topics of homelessness and poverty, collect clothing, food, books, and toiletries, and make boxed lunches which are delivered to Girard Center and the Life Centers of Delaware County.

Favorite characters come to life in the Lower School library, where our boys develop a love of reading. While listening and responding to stories, the boys practice a number of important skills, including:

• How to ask a question
• How to think about their reading preferences
• How to locate books within the library

The pre-kindergarten program places an emphasis on auditory processing, visualization skills, and expressive language to create a strong foundation for future academic learning and social success. Boys learn how to listen, follow multi-step directions, self-regulate, and become contributing members of a classroom unit.

Boys explore the class library and develop a love for stories and reading. Our faculty focus on developing early literacy skills through engaging activities in the classroom. Boys build an understanding of vocabulary and background knowledge through a language-rich classroom environment and thematic units of study. We develop students' phonological awareness skills, including rhyming and discriminating and manipulating sounds in spoken words, in addition to identifying letter names and sounds. Boys are encouraged to develop their fine motor skills through various hands-on activities. As part of integrated literacy lessons, they begin to learn correct letter formation, which is reinforced through learning to write their names, the letters of the alphabet, and phonetic spelling as they explore how to express themselves through writing. 

Providing students with opportunities for real life problem solving and math skills such as subitizing, one-to-one correspondence, comparison, patterning, and graphing are an integral part of our math program. Boys are given opportunities to explore their mathematical knowledge through computational and conceptual projects and are assessed on their abilities, helping teachers to develop differentiated instruction and plans for further growth.

Boys learn the fundamentals of musicianship:

• Understanding a steady beat
• Playing and reading rhythm patterns
• Developing a clear pitch and proper singing voice

Boys are actively engaged throughout the music lessons through singing, listening, moving creatively, and playing musical instruments.

Physical education arms the boys with healthy lifestyle habits and develops a positive attitude toward being active. The pre-kindergarten physical education class reinforces:

• Spatial awareness
• Hand and body coordination
• Healthy sportsmanship
• Cooperation and a sense of fair play

Boys learn how to:

• Be curious and explore
• Organize their thoughts to ask questions
• Investigate topics in ways to learn more 
• Have fun while pursuing inquiry
• Cooperate and collaborate with their peers

The five senses are a successful conduit for delivering information to boys. Our sensory-based lessons give boys experience with using lab equipment to measure and perform experiments. Boys study models and use the scientific method to make discoveries in lessons that include the five senses; animals; the human body; matter; energy; the sun, Earth, and moon; seeds and plants; and weather.

Boys are exposed to a deep understanding and appreciation of themselves, each other, their school, and the greater community. They explore a variety of transportation methods while they tour different regions around the world, including South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. 

We build our classroom community based on The Haverford School's core virtues in order to learn how to better serve the global society. Boys engage in service learning projects, including collecting items for Project HOME and preparing meals. We collaborate with other grade levels through the "buddy" program and other initiatives to promote a positive school-wide environment.

In pre-kindergarten and kindergarten the boys are focused on nourishing a love for creating while zeroing in on the fine motor skills used in tasks such as cutting, gluing, and gripping. Projects are woven in with their classroom studies so that there is a cross-curricular element that promotes a consistency throughout their monthly themes. Our lessons include elements of art such as basic color theory, shape recognition, texture and size relationship.

The boys paint, sculpt, collage and construct creations that reflect classroom studies such as Russia, the rain forest and the Polar Express. The boys are also inspired by the work of various artists like Faith Ringold, Paul Klee, and Wassily Kandinsky. There is always a conscious balance between following directions and nurturing individual expression within each project.

Boys learn how to construct creations that reflect classroom studies through:

• Drawing
• Painting
• Collaging

Cutting, gluing, and gripping are just some of the many fine motor skills practiced. The boys build these skills by creating masterpieces, including handcrafted games! In the classroom, boys learn about and practice the artistic style of a variety of artists throughout the school year.