Saint Andrew's Children's Center

The official curriculum of Saint Andrew’s Children’s Center is High Scope. A key element of High Scope is Active Participatory Learning. Children and adults learn best through hands-on experiences with people, materials, events, and ideas. That principle — validated by decades of research — is the basis of High Scope's approach to teaching and learning.
This curriculum emphasizes child-initiated more than teacher directed choices. It also emphasizes decision-making, adult-child interaction, a carefully designed learning environment, and a plan-do-review process which strengthens children’s initiative and self-reliance.
Teachers and students become active partners in shaping the educational experience.The High Scope curriculum also encourages children to make decisions by offering many choices. Research has shown that children who are allowed opportunities to make decisions actually score higher on standardized tests.

Our preschool staff use the Zoo-phonics® method for teaching children to become strong readers and spellers. The Zoo-phonics® method is popular as a language arts program not only in the United States but across the world. It is used in many area elementary schools.

Zoo-phonics® uses animals drawn in the shapes of the letters for ease in memory. A related body movement is given for each letter. This concrete approach cements the sounds to the shapes of the letters. Lowercase letters and their sounds are taught first (needed 95% of the time in text), capital letters and letter names are taught later.

Zoo-phonics® also provides a springboard for all other academia such as math, art, music, cooking/nutrition, social studies, science, grooming, physical education and sensory/drama.

Every aspect of the program has been field-tested and found to be effective. Educational research repeatedly supports the focus of phonics in early reading programs.

We have a dedicated and well trained School Readiness Team ready and eager to work with your child. Staff work hard throughout the year to ensure that your child is highly prepared for kindergarten. In fact, our goal is to give your child the tools to have a successful journey throughout the K-12 school system and beyond! Our Pre-kindergarten staff create a learning environment that fosters the development of the social-emotional, cognitive and physical development of each child. Caring teachers strive to foster the natural joy of learning found in all children. A challenging and fun environment is created by teachers who plan a curriculum that encompasses more child-initiated than teacher-directed activities. There will be many opportunities for your child to develop problem-solving skills, a sense of adventure, curiosity and exploration. As children grow and learn they gain an increasing sense of autonomy and mastery over their environment. Self confident children become self confident learners!  This program serves children who are one and two years away from kindergarten entry.