A young child’s best learning tools are their head, hands, and heart, as they examine the world around themselves, discover the world inside themselves, and master the skills that are the building blocks for the future.
At The Saklan School, we follow the whole child approach to learning. Each child deserves to be healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged. We accomplish this through a holistic approach to development and education: hands-on, cooperative play, project-based learning, and thoughtfully designed activities that stimulate the mind and provide socialization opportunities.
The Saklan School offers a low teacher:student ratio, so our teachers can nurture each child as an individual. Our teachers act as guides, scaffolding a child’s growth by interacting with them as they explore. Children are encouraged to learn through their curiosity, make connections to the world around them, and be a part of the learning process each day.This work is highlighted through two in-depth projects completed each year in a topic of interest to students where they get to investigate and answer their authentic questions. Immersed in a warm and caring educational environment, our Preschool and Pre-K children play and collaborate, developing strong social-emotional competency to be productive members of a classroom and school community.
A typical day in our Early Childhood program is designed to transition children through guided activities that support their development and challenge their growth. Emergent units of study allow teachers to help children build on developmental changes. Recent curriculum and Project units have included:
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Our Early Childhood program introduces the building blocks on which our elementary program is constructed and prepares your child for success throughout their educational journey: kindergarten, elementary school, and beyond. We encourage individual growth in each curriculum area from reading to math, and social studies to science. Often over the course of one of our project units, children explore many content areas to deepen their learning about a particular topic. We nurture each child’s developmental timetable to ensure successful discoveries, a love of learning, and a strong sense of self-esteem.
The Saklan School has a three-year-old classroom and a four-year-old classroom. Both classrooms include a five-day, full day program, 8:30AM - 2:00PM with extended day available from 7:45AM - 5:30PM.
All Preschool and Pre-K children experience:
For our youngest learners, our project units are deeply grounded in their authentic questions about topics that are relevant and connect to their lives, interests, and passions. Our projects begin with a topic and project launch that generates excitement and curiosity while also honoring their prior knowledge and interests. Previous topics for our ECE projects include rainforests, construction, and outer space. In the second phase of the project, students ask their own questions about the topic and engage as a class in field experiences, conversations with experts, and respond to their learning by creating a wide variety of representations to show what they have learned before using their experiences to generate new questions and engage in the cycle of inquiry once more. The final phase of Saklan project units in ECE is a culminating event where students welcome families and friends into the class to share about all that they have learned about their project topic. This rich, student-driven process capitalizes authentic student questions and empowers them to be actively engaged in their own learning.
Spanish classes aim to be fun and serve as a gentle introduction to foreign language, taught with an emphasis on interactive activities, stories, songs and games that are used to introduce vocabulary and commonly used phrases in Spanish. Students also engage in art projects to help the children draw association to the Spanish material as they speak and create.
Music is an important part of our students’ education at The Saklan School. We invite the children to experiment with different instruments, experience different styles of music, and introduce them to elements of live performances.
Scientific studies show that sustained vigorous movement is essential for optimal brain development. To promote student movement, time for recess is provided daily, and physical education class meets several times a week. The Early Childhood focus for physical education is as follows. Sustained motion such as run, walk, dash. Exploration in ways of movement while changing levels, low to the ground changing to above the ground (climbing and jumping). Exploration of manipulation of objects such as: balls, hula hoops, jump ropes, bean bags, a parachute, tug 'o' war rope, sticks and bats. Experience in playing as a group (collaboration and sportsmanship). Introduction to the sports of basketball, soccer, floor hockey, and other large group games.
Preschool and Pre-K students take part in weekly school library visits. These visits allow young students to explore a world of books and see how reading serves their learning journey.
Our field experiences offer unique opportunities to our Preschool and Pre-K students. Visits to Moraga Community Garden, Chabot Space and Science Center, Si Si Caffe, and the fire station, offer young minds educational experiences that connect classroom learning to the world outside of the classroom.
