The environment is arranged so that children are exposed to their written name, establish a daily flow, create peer relationships, understand emotions and start to express their thoughts and ideas in simple sentences. By encouraging communication between the children they begin to understand the dynamics of a classroom community.

Our educators share stories that help build new vocabulary and also instill the interest to read. The teachers connect stories with objects and events in children’s lives so that they may begin to understand that print and pictures have a meaning.

A variety of opportunities are offered for children to experiment with art and drawing as they are able to make lines, zigzags, make a series of scribbles and begin to give meaning to the symbols they create. Educators create a rich environment to offer various possibilities to recognize common symbols, some letters, sometimes the first letter of their names, and drawing lines that begin looking like letters and shapes.

Educators begin to ask open-ended questions and plan brainstorming discussions to encourage children to verbalize their ideas and promote conversations amongst them. During these discussions the teachers take notes or make recordings to document children’s thinking. As children create theories and ask questions projects begin to emerge. Through projects children develop cognitive skills such as problem solving, collaboration, understanding cause and effect, sharing and how to be a member of a group.

Our teachers invite the children to participate in creating projections and in revisiting their experiences through photographs, discussions, videos, or voice recordings. Children of the Fours are also encouraged to get involved during the documentation process and their perspectives are written down and become part of these records.

At the age of four your child is constructing their knowledge of written language. They want to know what words in their environment say and are able to recognize many letters. By the end of this year many children understand that letters represent the sounds in spoken words and may associate some letters with their sounds. Most children also write some legible letters and know that writing goes from left-to-right and top to bottom. When your child draws or paints they begin to represent detailed aspects of their imagination as well as begin to incorporate letters and words to describe them.

Your child’s capacity for learning math concepts increases at this age. They can successfully use language to compare and describe objects and shapes. Children of the Four’s know days of the week, months and the seasons.

They are able to walk, climb, jump, hop, skip, march and gallop skillfully at this age. They have also improved their ability to throw, catch, kick and bounce balls. Four-year-olds enjoy dancing and are able to move rhythmically and easily. Their fine motor skills have also improved therefore supporting their ability to hold writing tools. As their hand-eye coordination develops, dressing and undressing themselves is mastered.

Four-year-olds are very curious and use their imaginations to help understand the world around them. They become complex thinkers through predictions, and their teachers provide supportive information and opportunities for experimentations of trial and error observations. Our teachers value and respect these abilities and offer opportunities to explore in spaces that invite the children to utilize the collection of data and graphing, the class of the Four’s begins to use science and engineering practices to better understand their communities, economic and ecosystems as well as the physical earth in which they exist. As the children engage in different explorations where their interests are taken into account, the teachers facilitate learning through questions and providing appropriate tools and materials that will further their research.

As children explore and develop relationships they build an understanding of learn what causes certain feelings and realize that others may react differently to the same situations. Because of this children begin to further progress in more complex social interactions such as joining in organized group play.