Play is an act of discovery that helps develop the imagination and helps to prepare children for later life.  

It helps children make sense of their world.  Play is fun, but for the young child it is also work.  We watch closely, work together, and play together with the children to extend the play and learning. 

The pre-school years are an exciting time of tremendous growth and development for our children. Our curriculum guides and stimulates learning in all areas of development.

• Helping children develop self-confidence. 
  
• Developing independence and self-control. 
• Helping the children to be in touch with their feelings and to express their feelings in appropriate ways. 
• Developing problem solving skills.  
• The children learn that conflict is okay and that they need to learn to communicate and solve problems.  Ultimately, learning to handle problems builds self-esteem and develops important life skills. 
• Fostering a positive attitude and outlook on life. 

Language Development

Social Development

Intellectual Development

• Fine motor skills (small muscle coordination, control and strength) are developed through manipulative toys, painting, pasting, tracing, coloring, cutting, and by experimenting with dough.   
  
• Large motor skills are developed through outdoor play, tumbling, walking, jumping, hopping, exercising, throwing and catching, parachute play, and group games. Rhythmic movement skills are developed through dancing, pantomime, marching, clapping, repetitions and patterns, and songs.
  

• Little Bunch is a place of social and joyful learning in and for itself.  Additionally, it helps ready our children for kindergarten by: 
  
• Helping build self-esteem and confidence. 
  
• Helping the child become more comfortable in a group situation.  
  
• Developing good listening skills and the ability to follow simple directions.  
  
• Developing basic concept and problem solving skills.  Help the child separate comfortably from parents.  
  
• Establishing friendships with other children who will be in kindergarten with them.
  

Dramatic Play

Learning Through Play

Motor Development

Preparation for Kindergarten

• Integrated learning through projects and thematic units which expand children's knowledge and skills in various areas.  Children learn what is meaningful to them.  Our theme units revolve around the experiences, knowledge, skills, needs, and interests of our children.  
  
• Learning is focused through hands-on discovery activities, group discussions, stories, and flannel board aids. Learning through games such as sequencing, memory (concentration), matching lotto. Identifying colors, shapes, beginning number concepts, and beginning letter recognition and sound concepts through an integrated approach.  
  

Emotional Development 

This is a child's way of working out relationships. Through the exploration of family and community helper roles, children develop their concepts of group membership and mutual support. The need for cooperation in a family becomes quickly apparent to the child who is pretending to be a mother, father, baby or grandparent. 

Cooperative behaviors can be encouraged and supported through play. Through role playing, children find a means of expressing emotions, fears, and anxieties in an acceptable, non-threatening form.  Such involvement can help children to deal with feelings that might be uncomfortable or frightening for them.   

Dramatic play can help children view situations from another point of view, promoting intellectual and social development, and provides a variety of language experiences.   Block play helps children learn to plan ahead, work together, and problem solve.  As they try out their ideas, use their imaginations, and reconstruct aspects of their environment, they also learn about the size, shape, measurement, color and physics (concepts of balance).  They learn about the relationship between size and capacity.   

• Helping children feel comfortable in school.  
  
• Fostering a sense of school community and feeling that they are part of a group. Establishing friendships and learning to support, trust, and encourage one another. Fostering self-respect and respect for others. 
• Learning to listen and talk at appropriate times.  
• Following classroom rules and routines. 
  
• Participating in group and cooperative activities. 
  

Naples Little Bunch Preschool

• Encouraging children to share and talk about their ideas, thoughts, and work. 
  
• Promoting literacy learning and increasing vocabulary by reading stories aloud, singing songs, nursery rhymes, finger plays, puppets and games.  
  
• Sharing literacy forms a basis for children's use and appreciation of language.  Children begin to associate printed words with action and dialogue, interpret pictures, make predictions, repeat familiar passages and enjoy the intimacy of warmth from the shared experience of listening, reading and responding. 
  
• Developing skills to become more attentive listeners and to follow simple directions. Creating a classroom environment rich in print. 
  
• Allowing children to express themselves through various media (paper, crayons, paint, markers, dough) and experiment with writing (at this age, usually scribble and pre-writing).  
  
• Writing and art blend naturally to help children reconstruct and communicate ideas.  Since pictures tell stories, ideas are expressed in art, as well as in writing, and in the combination of the two.