Early Childhood Curriculum | 3K-K
“Play is the work
of children.”
- Jean Piaget, Child Psychologist
At ESN, play is the core of our Early Childhood curriculum.
Meaningful play develops cognitive, linguistic and social development while increasing creativity and divergent thinking.
Through inquiry and hands-on exploration, 3K, PK and Kindergarten students are encouraged to partner in their education by expressing their interests and questions while investigating and learning through all of their senses.
-
Episcopal School of Nashville’s 3K program is designed to foster every aspect of a child’s development. It's an investment in your child’s future, ensuring they grow into well-rounded individuals, ready for the challenges and opportunities of Pre-Kindergarten education and beyond. We believe that this early stage of education is not just about preparing for the next academic step, but also about fostering the development of a well-balanced, joyful, and curious child, fully aligned with our mission at ESN to nurture the joy of learning and spirit of discovery.
-
Early Academic Skills:
From birth to four years old, children are rapidly developing cognitive skills. Our 3K program introduces basic concepts in literacy and numeracy in a playful, engaging manner, laying the groundwork for future academic success.
Problem-Solving and Critical Thinking:
Our program provides ample opportunities for interactive play and exploration, through which children learn to think critically, solve problems, and understand the world around them.
-
Building Social Skills:
Our classroom is a safe, supportive setting for children to learn to interact with peers, develop friendships, and understand the value of cooperation and empathy.
Emotional Intelligence:
Our teachers help guide children to recognize and express their emotions in a healthy way, fostering emotional resilience and self-awareness.
-
Fine and Gross Motor Skills:
By providing an environment that supports and encourages arts and crafts, block building, outdoor play, and physical activity we support both fine and gross motor skills, balance, and coordination. These skills are the foundation for life skills such as reading, writing, and playing sports.
-
Enhanced Language Abilities:
Language development is encouraged through books, storytelling, songs, and meaningful, relevant conversations. Engaging in frequent, intentional communication with young children enhances language development, which is vital for effective communication and literacy skills.
Expressive and Receptive Language Skills:
We encourage children to express their thoughts and understand others, thereby laying a foundation for strong, well-rounded communication skills.
-
Ethical Understanding:
In line with our Episcopal values, we introduce concepts of kindness, sharing, and respect for all people, helping children develop a moral compass from a young age.
Spiritual Growth:
Our chapel and catechesis programs provide gentle exposure to spiritual teachings, in which children learn about compassion, community, and the importance of caring for others.
-
Self-Confidence:
By encouraging independence in daily tasks and decision-making, we help children build self-esteem and a sense of autonomy.
Self-Reliance:
By providing structured routines and activities to foster independence, we prepare children for the more formal structure of school life ahead.
-
Fostering Creativity:
Key components of our program are artistic opportunities and imaginative play to nurture creativity and innovative thinking.
Exploration of the Arts:
Through exposure to music, art, and quality picture books within the classroom, our program enriches the imagination and can spark lifelong interests and talents.
-
Ease of Transition:
By gently familiarizing children with a structured learning environment, our program eases the progression to more formal schooling, making that transition smoother and less intimidating.
Early Learning Habits:
By instilling a love for learning and curiosity, as well as a positive classroom experience, at this age our teachers set a precedent for your child’s educational journey as a lifelong learner.
3K
-
The Pre-Kindergarten (PK) at ESN is a play-based program. Our classrooms provide a setting for students to learn through hands-on exploration. PK is a lively place where children learn by doing, sharing, and experiencing. Our program helps set a strong foundation for the skills they will need in the next stage of their educational journey with a balance of both teacher led and student initiated learning. The classrooms have been intentionally designed to support values of joyful play, discovery, creativity, and curiosity. They offer rich centers for investigation and self-initiated engagement in science, math, literacy, creative arts, and dramatic play. We utilize the Learning Without Tears curriculum, and regularly conduct cooking activities and science experiments. Students attend weekly division and all school chapel, music, art, and urban gardening lessons.
-
Develops a love for children’s literature through class read alouds, mystery readers, and our reading buddy program
Investigates language through the study of letters, letter sounds, and rhyming
Encourages participation in writing and pre-writing techniques using Handwriting Without Tears curriculum and activities specifically planned to strengthen fine motor skills
-
Explores geometric shapes and spatial relationships to create and build objects
Compares objects by length, size, and height
Introduces numbers 1-20
Builds 1:1 correspondence and counting skills
Practices sorting, comparison, and patterning skills
-
Explores science and nature through outdoor play
Provides hands-on activities through weekly gardening classes to develop a respect for living things
Participates in fantasy and constructive games with rules and gross motor play
-
Creates relationships with peers to develop empathy, happiness, and self-worth
Builds interpersonal skills of cooperation, collaboration, and problem solving
Strives to increase independence and self-help skills
Teaches perseverance in challenging situations
Supports language development with peers and teachers
PK
-
Kindergarten at ESN continues the play-based learning approach of our Pre-Kindergarten classrooms. We structure our school day to encourage inquiry, exploration and discovery. Whole group activities promote both foundational skills and social-emotional learning. Small group instruction during the academic blocks allows for differentiation and opportunities to challenge and enrich students at their individualized developmental level. Free-choice opportunities encourage students’ interests and curiosities with unique spaces such as the light table, the tinkering station, and sensory table explorations. We extend our classroom walls to the outdoors with our playground, sand kitchen area, and water or messy play in the outdoor sensory table. We also take advantage of our urban neighborhood with frequent nature walks. Keeping raincoats and rainboots at school allows us to be ready to play in nearly any kind of weather! Throughout the week, Kindergarten students have opportunities outside of the classroom to explore concentrated activities such as art, music, urban gardening, and library. We celebrate our Episcopal identity through weekly divisional and all school chapel services.
In small group settings we focus on introducing skills in a joyful, playful classroom where children are encouraged to become curious, observant, and confident learners. We strive for our students to see themselves as readers and writers, mathematicians, scientists and gardeners, and valued members of their home and school community.
-
Develops phonemic awareness and pre-reading strategies through a multi-sensory approach
Reads to develop fluency, expression, and confidence
Retells story elements such as events, characters, and settings of a story and responds to make meaningful connections to those elements
Uses a variety of prewriting and writing strategies to develop clear, legible manuscript
Writes in meaningful ways to support an opinion, provide information, or tell a story with corresponding pictures
-
Understands, recognizes and models numbers to 100 in various representations using Singapore Math Curriculum
Counts to 100 by ones, fives, and tens
Works with numbers 11-20 to gain foundations for place value
Identifies and describes 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional shapes
Understands addition concepts as “putting together” and uses various strategies to model addition
Understands subtraction concepts as “taking away” and uses various strategies to model subtraction
Knows a variety of measurement concepts and utilizes both standard and non-standard units of measurement
-
Explores and observes the environment using the five senses
Investigates the basic needs of plants and animals
Actively engages with plant life stages through weekly hands-on Gardening classes
Observes and classifies daily and seasonal weather patterns and changes
Explores how sunlight warms the Earth’s surface
Investigates how forces of motion affect the movement of objects
-
Explores and respects culture, traditions, and customs within families
Investigates “Who am I” and “Who is My Family” within our school community
-
At the Episcopal School of Nashville, we view technology as a tool to accomplish academic objectives and enhance learning; Technology is not the goal.
Every classroom from K through Grade 2 has iPads for educational use.
Teachers use those devices to enhance their instruction and give students opportunities to express themselves.
