Programs

Deerfield Community Nursery School

Programs

Deerfield Community Nursery School (DCNS) offers programs for children from 18 months to six years old. These are:

Time with Tots (Parent and Tot class)
All by Myself (2-1/2 year olds)
3-Year Olds
4-Year Olds
Lunch Bunch
Enriched Lunch Bunch
Kindergarten Enrichment
Music Together®

Time with Tots
This class meets once a week from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. OR 10:45 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. and is specially designed for toddlers 18 to 36 months. Children and their parent or caregiver, along with a teacher, participate in a variety of sensory experiences, dramatic play, stories and more. Siblings are welcome to attend for an additional fee.

All By Myself
This class is for children who are 2 years old by May 1st. Each class has two teachers and a maximum of 10 children and meets two days per week on either Mondays & Thursdays OR Tuesdays & Fridays.

For many children, this is their first school experience on their own. Early in the school year, goals for this class include successfully dealing with separation issues, learning how to predict and follow routine, exploring different materials and learning to become a member of the classroom community. Teachers facilitate language skills, socialization and problem-solving abilities. As the year progresses, children work on self-help skills, such as cleaning up and taking off their coats, communication and early literacy skills, dramatic play experiences and experimentation in art.

3-Year Olds
For children who are 3 years old by September 1st. There is a 6:1 child-to-teacher ratio, and the class is limited to 16 children. This class meets three days a week.

As the children become preschoolers, more opportunities for socialization, negotiation and problem solving take place. The curriculum revolves around a theme each week, such as drama, art, language arts, music/movement, math, science and social studies. For example, cooking projects meet the following curricular goals: socialization by following directions and taking turns with peers, language as children are exposed to new vocabulary, math as they measure ingredients and science as raw eggs are cooked, scrambled and changed with food coloring.

Examples of weekly themes include:

Colors (Yellow): Squeeze lemons, make lemonade and create a lemonade stand. Along with science, the 3-year olds learn about the economic systems of the United States by beginning to understand the use of trade to obtain goods and services.
Animals: Read and discuss stories about different types of animals, create artwork using various media depicting animals, have a teddy bear picnic.

4-Year Olds
For children who are 4 years old by September 1st. There is a 7:1 child-to-teacher ratio for this group. This class meets four days a week.

Our older preschoolers are now thinking about and planning their play experiences more than before. Block building is more complex as children sort, compare, make patterns, explore spatial relationships and measure. Trial-and-error experiences are a wonderful way for children to hypothesize and try out their ideas. Language and literacy, such as listening skills, oral expression, beginning sight vocabulary, beginning print skills and early writing ability are promoted through large-group time and calendar discussion, journals, story time and more. The children enhance their learning through field trips to locations such as the beach to explore and collect items for special projects, the police station and the fire house.

Examples of weekly themes include:

Winter: Construct igloos and ice castles, create snow-people artwork, explore real and man-made snow, make stone soup.
Harvest Time: Make applesauce, compare and contrast different apples for color/taste/number of seeds/texture, eat apple then plant its seeds to grow an apple tree, create apple tree artwork.

Lunch Bunch
One day each week for an hour, the 3- and 4-year olds may attend an extended day, in which they bring a sack lunch and enjoy the company of friends and teachers and an extra measure of art, storytelling and outdoor fun. There is an additional fee for this optional program.

Enriched Lunch Bunch
One day each week for an hour and a half, 4-year olds may attend an extended day, in which they bring a sack lunch and enjoy additional learning time with our experienced staff. As an extension of our nursery school curriculum, this developmentally appropriate class emphasizes early literacy, math and science. The teacher will choose one of these curricular areas each week. Concrete, hands-on experiences will pave the way for development in oral language, story comprehension, literacy skills, numbers, quantities, comparisons, sequencing, predicting, cause and effect, and inquiry. There is an additional fee for this optional program.

Kindergarten Enrichment
This new class designed especially for kindergartners will be under the direction of our DCNS experienced staff. The emphasis of the developmentally appropriate curriculum will be literacy, math and science. Each week, the teacher will choose a curricular area that will be complemented by outdoor play, art and lunchtime where the a.m. and p.m. kindergartners will be together.

Examples of weekly themes include:

Making a Book Come Alive: After choosing a book to read with the children, the children will write a script, act out the story, draw pictures and have the opportunity to write their own stories and books. Children will be exposed to a variety of literary works including fiction, non-fiction, nursery rhymes, poems, legends, etc.
Mental Mathematics: Compare quantities of different objects, estimate quantities, match correct numbers to the actual number of objects, discuss more less and equal, guess what is in the mystery bag.
Me and My Shadow: Use flashlights, natural light etc. to make shadows, trace shadows, look for shadows, dictate/write stories about shadows.

Music Together®
Our experienced and degreed music teacher has been trained and certified in the Music Together® program. This program recognizes that all children are musical and that every child needs a stimulating, supportive music environment to achieve basic competence in the wonderful human capacity for music-making. Information on the Music Together® program can be found here.

The 3- and 4-year-old classes have music every Wednesday, and there are weekly visits to the All By Myself and Time with Tots classes.