Welcome to Early Childhood
Learning through play
The Early Childhood Program is focused on establishing children’s independence. Learning is wholly experiential, sensory-based, and highly individualized. Children learn best by experiencing new activities and having fun! At its core, our teaching philosophy encourages child-centered creative play and applies a hands-on approach.
Our Early Childhood division is made up of three classrooms:
Early Preschool
Students must be at least 2 years old to enter our Early Preschool class. We accept students on a rolling basis as they turn two. Understanding that school readiness is dependent on each child’s development, we offer both part-time and full-time enrollment options in this class. The Part-time option is 3 full days (8:10am-3:10pm).
Nursery
Students must be at least 3 years of age by September 30th in order to begin in our Nursery classroom. Students must also be fully potty-trained. In Nursery, our students begin wearing our Hovnanian School uniforms: 3 days per week in full uniform, 2 days per week for physical education.
Pre-Kindergarten
Students must be at least 4 years of age by September 30th in order to begin in our Pre-K classroom. Students continue to wear their uniforms to school, 3 days in full uniform and 2 days for physical education. Our Pre-K program is full-time: 5 days per week, full days (8:10am-3:10pm).
How we promote social skills
In Early Childhood, socialization is the vehicle for exploring the world. It is important for us to keep our class sizes small and intimate – creating a space for each student to develop a special bond with his/her peers and teachers. Our ideal student to teacher ratio is 6:1. Socially and emotionally, we are helping our students get ready for Kindergarten and beyond by giving them the tools and practice they need for:
Practicing problem-solving on their own
Following rules
Offering help
Exhibiting empathy
Engaging in group activities
Observation is key
Student progress and assessments are observation-based, requiring an expert level of understanding of early childhood development by our teachers. Checklists and milestones based on research and experience are used as informative guidelines to encourage and support learning.
Early Childhood curriculum
Our Early Childhood curriculum, specifically focuses on developing students’ basic skills, independence and social skills through multi-sensory, hands-on engaging activities by creating a positive play-centered learning environment.
The Armenian curriculum we follow was developed by popular author Anahid Sarkissian. Find more about our Armenian curriculum in the link below.
Each year, our curriculum builds upon itself as children progress from class to class in our Early Childhood program. One example is how our Early Preschoolers are introduced to the five senses. They explore various textures, engage their tastebuds and are discovering different shapes and colors. By the time they reach Pre-K, they are experimenting with simple cooking projects like choreg-making – engaging in discussions about how it feels, smells & tastes.
letter recognition
language development
phonics
handwriting
pre-heading
math skills
Our students begin their journey of learning to write using the proven and popular program ‘Handwriting without Tears’. Academically, we help prepare our students for Kindergarten by focusing on the following, in both Armenian and English
Our week at-a-glance
Armenian homeroom and instruction
English 2 periods a day
French 15 minutes daily
Physical Education twice a week
Music twice a week
Library
Art
Early Childhood programs
Performing arts
Each December and June, we have a school-wide Hantes (concert) before breaking for the winter recess & summer, respectively, where students from our Early Preschool all the way through 8th grade perform songs, skits and poems in Armenian, English & French.
Grossology/STEAM
Offered as an after-school enrichment opportunity for some of our youngest learners, students will combine science and art to uncover sometimes icky, but useful ways science works all around us!
Karate & Soccer
Even beyond their regular Physical Education classes, our youngest students are offered more opportunities after school to release that extra energy!
School-to-parent communication
At Hovnanian, we use Blackbaud as our internal parent portal. For our students in early childhood, the portal is used as a window into our classrooms. Teachers will post songs, videos of our students in class, photos of our students’ work, etc.*
For our littlest learners in EPS, our teachers send a daily log regarding updates from your child’s day at school.
*Note: Parents have the option to opt out of their children being photographed both for internal posts (Blackbaud, yearbook) as well as external social media channels (Facebook, Instagram).
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