Early Childhood Program

Helping children to develop and channel their natural curiosity and love of learning is a primary focus at CAPCS. The caring, supportive atmosphere that we foster at CAPCS makes school appealing to little ones and provides a stable environment for their growth.

Our Early Childhood Program serves 3-, 4-, and 5-year old children in preschool, pre-kindergarten, and kindergarten. A teacher and a teacher's assistant who are trained in early childhood development and experienced in working with young children serve each class. Our goal is to bring out and develop each child's talents and skills, to encourage independence and decision-making skills, and to lay a solid

foundation for their school years. We guide children as they become more social through interaction with their peers, helping them to master skills such as cooperation, sharing, taking turns, and conflict resolution. We believe a quality child development program is tailored toward skills and activities that are appropriate to the child's age and stage of development, and allows children more individual choice in how to use their time. This carries over in everything from the way the classroom is set up to the books and toys used by the children to the enrichment activities we plan. Most attention is given to literacy, mathematical reasoning, scientific reasoning, and the arts.

Our curriculum is organized around the Core Knowledge Curriculum, which is aligned with the National Center for Education and the Economy (NCEE) literacy standards and the DC Public School content standards for other subjects. Some of the subjects covered are Early Literacy Development, Math, Science, Social Studies, Art, Music, Physical Education, Foreign Language (Spanish), and Technology. We use the Responsive Classroom model to address children's social and emotional needs.

Children need to grow strong physically as well as mentally, so our students work with a physical education teacher twice a week. Spanish language classes offered once a week help prepare children for life in their diverse city and in the global community. Our Spanish language teacher also provides ESL services to the English language learners, who comprise approximately 15% of our early childhood population.

Our participation in the Wolf Trap Residency Program brings area performing artists into the classroom to work with students and teachers as they explore music, dance, drama, and poetry. Whether it's banging out the syllables of a child's name on a drum, dramatizing a story to improve comprehension, or recognizing the beginning, middle, and end of a story, the links between the arts and emergent literacy are numerous. This program, sponsored by the Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning through the Arts, culminates in a trip to the Wolf Trap Performing Arts Center to participate in a performance designed especially for early learners.

The theory underlying our early childhood program is developmental in nature. We recognized that children go through sequential stages of development in different skill areas. There are several points central to this theory:

Children need to master one level before moving to the next.
Children's growth may be uneven, quick in some areas, slow in others
Physical development and intelligence do not proceed at the same rate.

While children may all go through predictable stages in the same order, they will not all go through them at the same rate.

In these early years, play is the most important activity in the lives of children. Sometimes it seems more important than eating or sleeping. Sometimes play is fun; sometimes pay is trying hard to do something right. Play is the work, the occupation, of childhood. For this reason, our state-of-the-art environments are equipped with developmentally appropriate furnishings and classroom materials. We also take advantage of our local surroundings, encouraging children to explore the beauty and wonder of nature and living things.

To keep current on developments and trends in early childhood education, we have an active professional development plan. In addition to regularly scheduled training sessions, a full-time curriculum specialist is on staff to support and train all teaching staff.

We view parents as partner sin the education of children, particularly in these early years. We maintain close contact with parents and encourage them to use the services of our Parent Center.

We know that our early childhood program is having the desired effect by the progress our students demonstrate. Clear evidence can be seen as the children move into elementary school. Exemplary early teaching and learning in the pre-primary grades has a lasting effect.

Early Childhood Program