Pre-Kindergarten

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Come join us to experience curiosity, persistence, reasoning, the application of previous knowledge and discovery! Pre-Kindergarten students at Mater Christi build a positive awareness of self, an appreciation of their own abilities, an awareness of limitations, and a strong sense of belonging.

Because young children learn best through play, the Mater Christi Pre-Kindergarten program is play based.  This means that we facilitate play which encourages learning in the eight domains of the Vermont Early Learning Standards.  These eight domains are:

• Approaches to Learning
• Social and Emotional Development
• Language, Literacy, and Communication
• Mathematics
• Science
• Social Studies
• Creative Expression
• Physical Health and Development

We strive to provide a high quality early childhood education and to build a foundation for academic and social competence while creating school readiness.  Our year will revolve around thematic units which coincide with the seasons of the year, holidays, as well as various science and social studies units.  Within those thematic units play and exploration will be the focus of learning activities.

Throughout the year, we do the following:

• We facilitate the students’ language/literacy/communication development throughout the day with activities and play concentrating on listening and understanding, speaking and communicating, vocabulary building, early writing/early reading skills.
• We engage students in play and activities which increase their understanding of numbers and operations, geometry and spatial sense, as well as patterns and measurement.
• We use play and a variety of field trips, activities, discovery times, and experiments to enhance the children’s scientific knowledge, skills, and methods.
• We use play, field trips, and activities to help the children expand their knowledge of spaces and geography, how people live, the environment, and the connection between past events and the present.
• We engage the students in play, drama, and art activities in order to allow each child to express himself/herself using a variety of tools and mediums.
• We utilize play, creative movement, and physical education to help the children develop their gross motor skills, their fine motor skills, their understanding of the five senses, and their awareness that physical activity and healthy behaviors promote personal health and safety.

Our program has a daily routine of center time, free play, snack, outdoor time, lunch, rest time, creative movement, physical education, story time, prayer time, and creative/artistic expression.  Our daily routine incorporates the ideas and practices of The Responsive Classroom approach.  Each activity throughout the day will take into consideration the children’s approaches to learning.

A letter from a Parent…

Mater Christi School has exceeded our expectations at every turn. Our daughters are growing in their faith and in their academics; they come home full of exciting news and stories and are anxious to go back the next day. This is the effect that attending a school that acts more like a family than an institution has.

My husband and I toured MCS as a potential rental space for our church, by the end of the tour we were convinced that this was the school we wanted our girls to attend. The respect that we witnessed in conversations happening between students and teacher in the gym impressed us beyond words – and that was gym class! It turns out, that was not the exception but the norm.

As Pre-Kindergarten students our children are so impressionable. Their little minds and hearts receive everything they experience. We took very seriously our decision to entrust that to MCS. It was a good decision. I’m so blessed to hear Miss Patty’s voice in our girl’s conversations as they play at home. She is a gift! The girls now practice the fine art of “working it out” before they come to us or get angry. They are making new connections between God and their faith and the world they live in. They have an increased respect for their peers and for the uniqueness each child brings to the class. Those are the influences they spend their weekdays absorbing. When your school elevates what you value and teach in the home how could you ask for more?

Each morning the girls look forward to seeing who will greet them at the front door. They love trips to the front desk to see Ms. Rock and the After School Enrichment Program continues the excellence – we have to budget time to see all they’ve done and say hello and goodbye to their friends and teachers. They love every experience in their school day.

As a mom, I am grateful that I can leave my children at their school and trust that they are safe, truly cared for, and heard every day. I’m confident that they are going to be better for having been in school, and that’s a blessing for which we are very thankful.

Jeremy and Melanie Shultz

Parents of two Mater Christi School students
Colchester, Vermont