Preschool
Program Philosophy
New Horizon School believes that the best way to serve children and families is to provide a supportive educational environment. Our school believes that a warm and nurturing atmosphere is the best environment for both children and adults to learn and grow. Therefore, our focus is to provide age appropriate activities for children and to provide opportunities for parents to enhance their parental skills. We strive to offer a positive learning experience for both children and adults. The environment is structured to provide skills, which are the first step in the child’s academic life. The Preschool program’s philosophy, curriculum and objectives are based upon the following beliefs:
- Children learn best by doing.
- Children benefit from planned educational activities.
- For children, play is work.
- Each child is unique; therefore adults must respect his/her special qualities.
Children learn best by participating in activities that are geared for individual choices, a “High/Scope Approach”, which permit them to learn at their own pace and abilities. Using creative materials, we can help children develop, express feelings and learn about the world around them. Knowing that the proper beginning in their early years is an invaluable aid to the continuous unfolding of a child’s potential, basic trust in self and in other people must be established at this time so that the child will be able to cope with tasks confronting them as they grow and broaden their horizons.
The areas of development around which our curriculum is organized are as follows:
- Social: to help children feel comfortable in school, trust their new environment, make friends, and feel they are a part of the group.
- Emotional: to help children experience pride and self-confidence, develop independence and self-control, and have a positive attitude toward life.
- Cognitive: to help children become confident learners by letting them try out their own ideas and experience success, and by helping them acquire learning skills such as the ability to solve problems, ask questions, and use words to describe their ideas, observations, and feelings.
- Physical: to help children increase their large and small muscle skills and feel confident about what their bodies can do.
- Spiritual: to help children develop a good feeling about God and about who they are as Muslims.
Our children, ages 3-5 years old, occupy two classrooms for the Preschool program. New classroom groupings are formed each September, as our 5 year olds move on to Kindergarten. Each class has a set daily schedule and routine, which helps the children to understand classroom time as a predictable series of events. The daily schedule offers a balance between the following types of activities:
- active and quiet times
- large group activities, small group activities, and time to play alone or with others
- indoor and outdoor play times
- time for children to select their own activities and time for teacher-directed activities
Within the scope of our curriculum, children learn to articulate their needs, and develop an awareness of their feelings and their personal rights to express them. Children enrolled in this program will have experiences in a variety of activities such as the following: arts and crafts, music and movement, science experiences, math, language, nature, sensory, manipulative play, and cooking.
As we enter into the 21st century, we also offer a variety of enrichment activities for our children that include computer lessons, field trips, and library visits. Our school is willing to try new ideas. Just as New Horizon fosters creativity within the children, so does it foster and encourage its staff to be creative. We take the experiences gained from being childcare professionals and rise to meet life’s daily challenges. In this environment which is based on Islamic values, not only will the children develop a positive self-image but also a strong Islamic identity.
Religious Studies
It is our goal to develop in each child a love for and understanding of God and Islam and to nurture an identity in each child as a confident and faithful American Muslim. We hope to accomplish these goals through appropriate instruction in three basic areas (Islamic Studies, Qur’an, and Arabic Language) and through the creation of an environment conducive to the promotion of Islamic values and beliefs.
In this program, we follow a set of themes for each month. Also, a set of Qur’anic verses and short suras are selected to correspond to these themes for the children to talk about and to memorize. In their first introduction to religious concepts, our children are offered a loving and exciting approach to this subject to instill in them a good feeling about God and about who they are as little Muslims. We nurture their positive growth through developmentally appropriate learning.
Children at New Horizon benefit from an integrated Islamic Studies curriculum. Their day starts off with the teachers bringing the two groups together for suras, songs, discussion of “value of the week,” activities, and sharing in the Story Time Theater. In each classroom, there are daily, small and large group activities. Also each day the children assemble for noon prayer.
