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Greetings!
As we begin the school year, we want to share a little more about what learning looks like in our Pre-K classrooms at CCPC and our newly adopted curriculum, The Creative Curriculum.
At CCPC, we believe that children learn best through meaningful, hands-on experiences—and that play is an essential part of that learning. A play-based approach does not mean that learning is unstructured or that children are simply “playing all day.” Instead, our teachers intentionally create experiences that let children explore, problem-solve, communicate, collaborate, and build the skills they need for kindergarten and beyond.
We have fully adopted The Creative Curriculum®, and our Chameleons Pre-K class uses it to guide classroom planning and ensure children develop across all areas of learning, including language and literacy, mathematics, social-emotional development, physical development, and approaches to learning. Teachers observe children, identify areas for growth, and intentionally plan experiences that meet children where they are developmentally.
For our Treefrog Pre-K class, we use Kickstart (part of the Creative Curriculum) to provide intentional support and opportunities for foundational skill development. Kickstart complements our play-based philosophy by helping teachers strengthen early literacy, language, math, and learning behaviors through engaging, age-appropriate experiences.
Our goal is not simply to prepare children to “do kindergarten work.” We want to help children become confident learners who can think, communicate, persist, make connections, and navigate a classroom community.
At CCPC, play and intentional teaching work hand in hand. Our teachers thoughtfully balance child-led exploration with teacher-guided experiences so that children have both the freedom to discover and the support they need to grow.
We look forward to partnering with you throughout the year as we watch your children learn, grow, and become increasingly confident and capable learners.
Nicole
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Designed for the Magical Year Before Kindergarten
The Creative Curriculum for Pre-K is a research-based, whole-child, prekindergarten curriculum designed specifically to address the unique strengths and needs of children in the year before kindergarten.
After devoting the first six weeks of school to developing a strong, collaborative classroom community, the curriculum then guides teachers to lead children in six, long-term, project-based, hands-on investigations of topics that young children typically find interesting, such as light, cameras, and seeds.
The curriculum is grounded in 38 objectives for development and learning that research has shown to be the most highly correlated to success in elementary school and beyond. It leverages play-based experiences and developmentally appropriate routines to actively promote children’s knowledge, skills, and abilities across ten essential areas: social-emotional, physical, language, and cognitive development as well as content learning in literacy, mathematics, science and technology, social studies, the arts, and—for multilingual learners—English language acquisition.
Developed in partnership with educators nationwide, The Creative Curriculum for Pre-K is a research-based, play-based pre-K curriculum for children in the year before kindergarten.
- Build an infrastructure for whole-child development.
- Honor the way children learn best – through play.
- Provide explicit Science of Reading and math instruction.
- Support teachers with digital tools that save them time.
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An Entire Year of Early Literacy Instruction
Kickstart Literacy is a literacy curriculum for the year before kindergarten that engages children in exciting play- and science of reading-based lessons focusing on phonemic awareness, phonics, and vocabulary –building skills children need to build early literacy skills for reading. Skills are spiraled throughout the year in large-group activities and independent discovery.
Kickstart Literacy™ by Teaching Strategies® covers four components of literacy: phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, phonics, and writing. These skills spiral over 180 lessons, beginning with foundational literacy skills. Approximately half of the lessons focus on a combination phonemic awareness, phonics, and letter formation skills to strategically introduce and review letter sounds and their corresponding letters. The remaining lessons bolster children’s phonological awareness skills including rhyming, alliteration, segmenting, and blending.
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What Does This Look Like in the Classroom?
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You may see learning happening through:
- Journaling and drawing: Children will have regular opportunities to draw, write, dictate, and share their ideas. Journaling supports early writing development, fine-motor skills, vocabulary, storytelling, and the understanding that our thoughts and experiences can be represented through pictures and print.
- Building with blocks and manipulatives: Children develop spatial reasoning, early math skills, problem-solving, and persistence.
- Dramatic play: Pretend play encourages language, imagination, cooperation, social development, and executive-function skills.
- Stories, songs, rhymes, and conversations: These experiences build vocabulary, listening skills, phonological awareness, and early literacy.
- Hands-on math experiences: Games and everyday classroom activities support counting, number sense, patterns, sorting, measurement, and problem-solving.
- Art and creative experiences: Children strengthen fine-motor skills while exploring materials, expressing ideas, and making choices.
- Teacher-guided small groups: Teachers provide intentional instruction and practice based on children's developmental needs.
- Outdoor play and movement: Active play supports physical development, coordination, social skills, and executive-function development.
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We are building more than kindergarten readiness.
We are nurturing children who are:
CURIOUS
CONFIDENT
CREATIVE
COMMUNICATIVE
CAPABLE
When children are engaged in meaningful learning, they aren't just preparing for kindergarten; they're building a foundation for academic success!
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