Bilingual Cooperative Preschool
Welcome
to preschool!
This is a place where parents
are involved in the classroom and where children,
ages
2 to 5, learn from each other,
their teachers and the talented parent community. At A New Leaf, we
play, work and cook together, and children study the arts and
sciences and are exposed to learning French. The curriculum
integrates print and number literacy in activities and during
hands-on projects and experiments.
Scroll down to for more information, to view pictures and read
about staff and parental involvement.
Preschool
Structure
School starts :
Mid August
School ends: May or June
We have 4 options: 2 days, 3 days, 4 days, or 5 days.
Time: 8:00 am to 2:30 pm
Tuition: from $300/month to $680/month.
Enrollment: 12 students per class
Staff: 2 teachers and one helping parent per class
Languages: English and French
Included: All fees, breakfast, lunch and afternoon snack.
Preschool
Core Curriculum
1.
Life skills: nutrition and health, cooking, gardening, movement and
exercise.
2. How to get along: cooperating more and competing less, finding
peaceful solutions, developing listening and oral expression
skills.
3. Sciences and math: hands-on projects and experiments,
understanding scientific concepts using artistic representations,
models and games; counting and using operations with Montessori
materials, everyday materials and more specialized materials.
4. Art: viewing and experiencing different forms of art, making
multi-media creations.
5. Music: rhythm, theory and practice, Kindermusik, listening to
music, singing songs in French, English and other languages,
dancing.
6. Languages: reading, storytelling, writing a journal, word games,
phonetics and spelling, speaking English and French.
7. Social studies: what children from other countries eat, wear,
play, make and say, global economy, what people do for a living all
around the world.
Examples
of activities
Playing
games;
drawing, writing
a letter, or working in their journal;
doing yoga;
building;
exploring shapes and letters;
counting, adding, subtracting;
playing the piano;
expressing
themselves through multi-media art;
dressing-up and
pretending;
developing
dexterity, strength, coordination, independence;
experimenting;
cooking;
acting and
singing with music and
gathering together for group time to greet each other, record the
weather, talk, recite a poem, read, learn about composers, taste
foods and more.
Many activities relate to ongoing themes. Themes emerge from
children’s interests. Past favorites have been: forms of
water, power of water, electricity, magnets, energy, how plants
grow, why we eat, how we digest, what is inside our bodies, animal
diversity, structure and function, insects, balls, cars and ramps,
and more! We ask questions together, create models and
experiment.
Staff
Director
and Teachers
The role of the
director and teachers is to orchestrate the constant improvement of
the quality of the environment, teaching, and interactions. We
interact with the students in a way that maximizes their learning.
We attend workshops, classes, and conferences. We organize the
environment, activities and materials. We read education,
neurobiology, psychology, learning and development literature. We
work to meet and excel all regulations and assessment criteria. We
are here to talk with parents about their children, about concerns
and joys. We want to meet the needs of each child and help them
grow thoughtful, strong and inspired.
Helping
Parents
Parents play a
fundamental role at A New Leaf. Parents, rotate in the
“classroom” as a helping teacher once a month. Parents
are also involved behind the scenes by fulfilling the requirements
of support jobs needed to run the school. When parents are excited
about the school and involved, the children are too. We believe in
helping new students transition to our school in a way that caters
to their needs. Parents are always welcomed at school. Helping
parents provide a rich community for students to feel secure. By
being a teacher once a month, parents feel connected to their
child’s experience, to the staff and to the other
families.