Our Curriculum
AT HWCNS, our curriculum is a balance of social, emotional and academic learning. The focus of this balance of learning changes as the children progress through our 2, 3 and 4 year-old Programs, as you will see below. We also follow the Handwriting Without Tears Program (HWT) to support the academic elements and we use different age-appropriate, hands-on, tools from this program to help the children master handwriting in a fun and structured way.
In the 2's class, children are learning important social skills, such as separating from a parent or caregiver for the first time and sharing toys with a friend. Emotional skills, such as walking in line and sitting in circle time are also being developed. We introduce introductory pre-school academics, such as letter, number, shape and color recognition and simple counting. The Handwriting Without Tears materials support children with these skills and help them to develop the fine motor skills they will need to write in the future.
As children progress to the 3's class, the emphasis on the social skills increases. By this stage, children are interacting and talking much more with their peers and we are able to focus more on social skills, such as kindness and respect during their daily activities. The academic focus increases in the 3's also, with children developing their pencil grip and gaining more confidence in letter and number recognition. The HWT Program also supports the academic learning in the 3's class. The HWT Wooden Pieces are introduced to the children and they learn the concepts of ‘Big Line, Little Line, Big Curve and Little Curve', which will help them to recognize letter formation.
By the time the children reach the 4's class, whereas social and emotional skills are still very important (such as taking turns to speak in circle time), the focus on the academics increases in the 4's class, as we prepare the children for Kindergarten the following year. We also increase the use of the Handwriting Without Tears Pre-School Writing materials, such as the Stamp and See Screen, HWT Chalk Boards and the HWT pre-school workbook.