Curriculum Overview
The curriculum of the Geneva Day School involves learning in all developmental growth areas and is based on what skills are considered age appropriate for students to acquire to mature as a “whole child.” These areas include: motor (gross and fine), language (receptive and expressive), cognition (thinking), social-emotional maturity, self-help (life skills), and the arts.
To understand the strengths, needs, interests and multiple intelligences of individual students, it is necessary to observe and informally assess where students are functioning. All teaching staff are involved in this important systematic and on-going process.
A listing of milestones is used that children generally reach at specific ages, including the CoreKnowledge Preschool Sequence, as well as, observations, anecdotal records, work samples, and photographs. Curriculum resources include Building Language for Literacy and the Early Childhood Program.
Staff use assessment information to develop and implement developmentally and culturally appropriate programs for individual and group learning, and prepare children for the next level of their education. Programs are multi-sensory, hands-on, multi-cultural, and involve all learning modalities.
Many specific learning goals exist for individual children during the course of a school year. On a more general basis, however, goals for all children include:
- making a successful transition from home to school,
- developing a positive self-esteem and self-confidence,
- becoming cooperative and respecting rules, property, and safety,
- working and playing independently and in groups,
- expressing oneself through drama, language, art, music, and play,
- developing large and small motor skills and coordination,
- learning to make good choices, solve problems, and develop positive social skills,
- exploring, observing, questioning, and listening,
- fostering a natural curiosity and creative thinking skills,
- developing appropriate cognitive, language, literacy and numerical abilities,
- becoming increasingly responsible for oneself, personal belongings, the class and school environments,
- acquiring skills so each Kindergartner will be successful in First Grade, and
- feeling secure and happy in a warm and loving atmosphere as each child explores and discovers a lifelong love of learning.
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