Jurisdiction
Licenses and Memberships
Our Lady of Grace Nursery School and Kindergarten fully complies with the educational regulations of the Diocese of Bridgeport. Of equal importance, Our Lady of Grace meets all of the legal and operational requirements of a Child Day-Care Center operating in the State of Connecticut and is fully licensed by the State of Connecticut. Our Lady of Grace maintains its membership in the Southern Fairfield County Association for the Education of Young Children (SFAEYC), the Child Care Association of Stamford and the United Way of Stamford.

PreK-3/PreK-4
Daily schedule for the 3 & 4 year old classrooms

In the event of inclement weather, all educational and recreational activities will be held in individual classrooms.

Additional Activities
Children have the opportunity to use our school computer lab every day. We use the latest interactive software to help the children learn and have fun.

The Ferguson Library Book Mobile visits the school twice a month. The library staff reads and sings with the children. It is just beautiful to see them sing along with the guitar.

The Tumble Bus comes every Friday. This is an optional activity (and an additional fee of $88), this is well attended and the children love it.

Kindergarten
Health & Family
The kindergarten health program focuses on awareness of the senses, emotions, and nutrition. Schools and homes work together on matters of health and safety. Students learn that the senses help gather information which can be used in making decisions.

The program focuses on the following areas:

• Well-balanced meals
• Sanitary behavior such as hand washing
• Adequate exercise and rest
• Medical and dental care
• Healthy environment

Creative Development
The goal creative development is to develop and nurture the child’s natural urge to create and to integrate his or her artistic development with other aspects of life. The teacher provides a variety of media within the classroom. Children are given the opportunity to explore, learn new techniques, and development skills.

Creative development is worked on in the following areas:

• Clay, collage, color recognition and mixing, modeling and assembling, paper sculpture, picture making, print making, drawing, puppet making, story illustration, and weaving.

Development of Good Work Habits
In order to work well the child must observe rules and regulations as presented by the teacher.

We are especially concerned about the following, That the child:

• Learns to listen to and follow directions
• Develops an adequate attention span
• Learns to work carefully and neatly
• Learns to work well independently
• Learns to seek help when needed
• Learns to complete tasks.

Development of Reading Readiness Skills
This area is most important in the child’s intellectual development. Reading readiness includes the following aspects:

• Letter Recognition: The child is introduced to the naming of upper and lower case letters as well as the matching of upper and lower case letters.
• Auditory Perception: The child is introduced to rhyming words, working with the same initial consonants, association of consonant sounds with letters representing those sounds, and discrimination of pairs of like and different words. Phonic skills are emphasized.
• Visual Perception: The child is introduced to the process of discriminating colors, shapes, pictures, letters, and words.
• Directionality: The child is introduced to left and right in relation to his or her own body and is directed to work from left to right in progression.
• Word Meaning: The child is introduced to the naming of familiar objects and to the placing of pictures into classifications, while he of she increases his or her vocabulary through listening and using spoken context as clues for missing words.
• Comprehension: The child is taught to follow oral directions, to listen to a story well, so that he or she can get the main idea of the story, recall its details, and retell the story in sequence.
• Verbal Expression: The child is instructed to interpret pictures, to speak in complete sentences and to dictate simple stories.

In each of the above aspects the teacher stresses drill work and repetition of reading exercises. The teacher will give the child individual help in those aspects when he or she shows some weakness.

Language Development
The child must learn the art of listening to the teacher and to other children who are speaking. He or she is then encouraged to express ideas and to speak clearly. The child is also encouraged to express ideas by means of gestures and pantomimes.

The teacher always strives to promote discussion of ideas among the children, according to the rules for discussion. Also the teacher prompts the child to remember short stories and to tell them in sequence. As needed, the teacher will tactfully and informally correct grammar mistakes of the child who is speaking.

Furthermore, the child is taught to create scribble stories, basing them on stories and pictures presented or on their own experiences. In due time the child is introduced to printing capital and small letters and to printing his her own name.

Kindergarten Mathematics
The mathematics curriculum consists of a sequence of skills taught at all grade levels. In teaching theses skills, a spiral learning approach is used. This means that the students master a skill at a basic level as they progress through the grades. As they do so, they have experiences with a variety of materials and approaches.

The kindergarten math curriculum develops an understanding and insight into the patterns of mathematics through the use of concrete materials. The program is designed to enable young children to understand and deal flexibly with mathematical ideals and concepts.

Children are introduced to activities dealing with position, size, and shape, counting, addition and subtraction, inequalities, measurements, money, temperature, time and space.

Kindergarten Science
In kindergarten, the focus of the science curriculum is on Physical Science with only an introduction to the Life Sciences.

Material objects, the physical science segment, encompasses the following:

• Introducing objects and their properties
• Introducing the concept of material
• Experimenting with material objects

Organisms, the life science, will cover the following:

• Observing particular plants and animals
• Describing a series of events in sequence

As an introduction to these units in science, the children learn through discovery and exploration to use the word object to refer to a piece of matter. The properties of objects are emphasized rather than their functions: reference is made to the color, shape, texture, and other characteristics of the object.

The children will also learn that plants and animals are living things, or organisms that need air, light, water and nutrients to survive, and that there is a distinct sequence or life cycle that all organisms experience.

Musical Development
Music as an integral part of the kindergarten curriculum is a medium of self-expression, through which a child can also gain understanding and skill in discipline.

The program begins at the five-year old level with the simplest amount of material needed to embody a musical concept. The program consists of songs, singing rhymes and games, rhythm through hand clapping and instrumental play, ear training and introduction to listening skills.

Daily Schedule for the Kindergarten Class