Four Year-Old Curriculum and Goals

Four year-olds are so much fun!  They are ripe with questions, discovering their own interests, and ready to do things themselves.

Mentally they can begin to retain the names of all those crazy numbers, shapes and letters.  They can start to associate sounds with letters, and also count objects.

Physically, they can stack blocks better than ever, hop on one foot, and kick a ball in a straight line.  They can start to grip a pencil, color in the lines, and use small manipulatives.

With my four year-olds, my goal is to have them leave me with a strong foundation for kindergarten.  Having two daughters myself and having taught transitional kindergarten I feel that I have a strong idea of what your child needs to know to survive kindergarten.  I hate to make the analogy, but a house has to have a strong foundation to stand up straight.  The same goes for your child’s academic foundation.

We focus on 5 major areas, literary awareness, phonetic awareness, alphabet and number recognition, social interaction and small and large motor skills.

Literary Awareness

I am a firm believer in reading to your child.  Bedtime stories or cuddling up with a book on the couch will give your child a love for books and a strong vocabulary.

I choose books to read based upon the various themes we go through, as well as special selections from the local library, Caldecott Award Winners and Honors, and classics.

We read a minimum of 3 books daily, usually more.  I like to incorporate activities that go along with the books we read and this really draws the children in.  By offering a broad selection of books read aloud, I am able to strike an interest in every child at some point.  If I find a collective interest, I like to go with it.  We may read a lot of books on that topic.

I also feel it is important for your child to hold a book in his/her hands and turn the pages, look at the story, and guess what it might be about.  Sometimes I will have the children make up a story to go with the pictures.  I always allow a chance for the children to hold books in their hands and gain this experience.

Phonetic/Phonemic Awareness

Phonetics and phonemic awareness basically is associating letters with letter sounds.  It also deals with word parts, identifying beginning and ending sounds, rhyming, and beginning to sound out small words.

While I do not expect all four year-olds to pick up on sounding out words yet, many will.  If they don’t, they will have all of kindergarten to enhance this skill.

We begin at the simplest level.  While singing our alphabet song during circle time, we sing “A, /a/ /a/, B /b/ /b/, etc” as we are pointing to the letters.  This is further enhanced in correlation with alphabet recognition by specializing on a letter of the week.  We work on recognizing the sight of the letter along with the sound it makes.  We glue /b/ /b/ beans to the letter B.  We find pictures that begin with the sound that the letter W makes.

Alphabet and Number Recognition

As I said above, we choose a letter and number of the week and focus on writing, recognizing, in the case of the alphabet, the sound it makes.  We also learn one-on-one correspondence by counting out 5 objects when we are working on the number 5.

During this time we focus on other math skills such as shapes and patterns.

Social Interaction

Many parents do not realize the importance of social skills

gained by four year-olds.  They learn cooperative play.  They work together to solve problems.  They begin to form friendships that are meaningful.  It is SO important.  Even playing house or dress-up is a valuable skill for a four year-old!

Large and Small Motor Skills (aka Gross and Fine)

I like the terms large and small better than gross and fine. J  Large motor skills involve bouncing and kicking a ball, learning to jump rope, climbing, skipping or galloping, and riding a tricycle.

Small motor skills are a little trickier.  Those fingers have a better ability to grasp a pencil, hold a crayon so they can put more detail into coloring in the lines, and put together small manipulatives.  We are going to start writing our names, and all efforts should be praised!  Some of those letters are tricky and some of our names are long!!!

FUN FUN FUN

Bottom line, if your child isn’t having fun they won’t learn.  If they aren’t enjoying it, they won’t retain it.  I encourage and adapt to what interests your child.  Everyone is different and has different interests.  Even my amongst my two children, they have very different ideas of what is “fun”.

Knowledge Tree Daycare and Preschool

Jennifer Morrill