Curriculum

See full learning goals for each class.

Children learn through play and exploration.  Good Shepherd Lutheran Preschool is committed to gently guiding its students’ education during the early years by following developmentally appropriate practices in all areas of the curriculum. 

In developing relevant lesson plans, teachers implement curriculum which covers all areas of the developing child – social and emotional development, cognitive development, physical development, and language development. Teachers assess the strengths and needs of each child. Class activities are designed to enhance these strengths and to provide experiences in areas needing reinforcement. 

The Maryland State Department of Education recommends that all preschool programs utilize a research-based curriculum that aligns with Healthy Beginnings, the state's guidelines for child development for birth to age 3, or with the rigorous Maryland College and Career Ready Standards for pre-kindergarten and kindergarten. The Maryland State Department of Education maintains a list of recommended curricula which address all areas of the developing child. Good Shepherd Lutheran Preschool uses a state-recommended curriculum for its Early Pre-Kindergarten program and implements the curriculum used by Montgomery County Public Schools for its Pre-Kindergarten program.

Early Pre-Kindergarten Curriculum

Teachers rely on InvestiGator Tots in Early Pre-Kindergarten 2 classes. This developmentally appropriate, play-based program is aimed at children ages 18 months to 3 years old and is designed to respond to students’ needs as assessed by teachers. Lessons are based on a Continuum of Growth and Development that includes the following areas:

  • Language Development and Communication: Listening and understanding, communicating and speaking, and early reading and writing.

  • Physical and Motor Development: Gross motor skills, fine motor skills, and health and self-help practices.

  • Cognitive Development: Exploration and discovery, memory, problem solving, and imitation and symbolic play.

  • Approaches to Learning: Initiative and curiosity, persistence and attentiveness, and creativity and imagination.

  • Social and Emotional Development: Building trust and emotional security, self-awareness, self-regulation, and relationships.

The Creative Curriculum for Preschool, 6th Edition is used in Good Shepherd Preschool's Early Pre-Kindergarten classes. Because the Creative Curriculum includes material appropriate for preschool students at different stages of development, teachers can tailor the curriculum to meet the needs and abilities of individual classes.

The Creative Curriculum program follows a developmentally appropriate continuum that begins with expectations for very young children and continues through expectations for five-year-old students. The curriculum covers four domains:

  • Social-Emotional: This domain includes learning to work in a class environment, taking care of self and being a friend, understanding personal needs, sharing, and taking turns;

  • Cognitive: This domain includes problem solving, developing math skills such as sorting, classifying, numeral identification, counting with one-to-one correspondence, patterns, and counting;

  • Physical: This domain includes both gross-motor development (running, hopping, balance, and coordination) and fine-motor development (manipulating small toys, writing, drawing, and cutting with scissors);

  • Language: This domain involves learning vocabulary and comprehension through songs, fingerplays, story time, and conversation. Alphabet concepts are introduced in informal settings. The sounds of language are a major focus. Students’ listening and speaking skills receive special attention.

Classes engage in five- to seven-week studies on child-friendly, hands-on topics such as Trees, Balls, Music Making, and Sandthat introduce students to new vocabulary and new learning experiences. Within each classroom, teachers create centers which provide opportunities to use a variety of equipment. Blocks, table toys, construction sets, art materials, a dramatic play center, and books and CDs are just a few of the materials which allow children to develop skills at their own pace. Teachers regularly assess children’s progress and work with both individuals and small groups.

Pre-Kindergarten Curriculum

Pre-Kindergarten students eagerly explore new concepts. GSLP's Pre-Kindergarten classes follow The Creative Curriculum like our Early-Prekindergarten classes. However, Pre-Kindergarten focuses on different studies and covers more studies in a year. Since the Creative Curriculum includes material appropriate for preschool students at different stages of development, our teachers can tailor the curriculum to meet the needs and abilities of individual classes.

The Creative Curriculum program follows a developmentally appropriate continuum that begins with expectations for very young children and continues through expectations for five-year-old students. The curriculum covers four domains:

  • Social-Emotional: This domain includes learning to work in a class environment, taking care of self and being a friend, understanding personal needs, sharing, and taking turns;

  • Cognitive: This domain includes problem solving, developing math skills such as sorting, classifying, numeral identification, counting with one-to-one correspondence, patterns, and counting;

  • Physical: This domain includes both gross-motor development (running, hopping, balance, and coordination) and fine-motor development (manipulating small toys, writing, drawing, and cutting with scissors);

  • Language: This domain involves learning vocabulary and comprehension through songs, fingerplays, story time, and conversation. Alphabet concepts are introduced in informal settings. The sounds of language are a major focus. Students’ listening and speaking skills receive special attention.

Classes engage in four-week studies on child-friendly, hands-on topics such as Shadows, Rocks, Flowers, Buildings and Getting Ready for Kindergarten that introduce students to new vocabulary and new learning experiences. Within each classroom, teachers create centers which provide opportunities to use a variety of equipment. Blocks, table toys, construction sets, art materials, a dramatic play center, and books and CDs are just a few of the materials which allow children to develop skills at their own pace. Teachers regularly assess children’s progress and work with both individuals and small groups.

Pre-Kindergarten uses the same math curriculum as Montgomery County Public Schools, Eureka math. The program provides hands-on activities to teach math skills aligned with kindergarten expectations. Since it is the same program as MCPS students go into kindergarten familiar with terms, process and instruction. It provides essential instruction in number sense, early addition and subtraction, shapes, classification, basic measurement, and more.

Teachers of Pre-Kindergarten classes take into account individual skill levels when planning classroom activities. Thus, a student who is not fully ready for Kindergarten can return for a distinctive, second year of Pre-Kindergarten.

Kindness Curriculum

Good Shepherd Lutheran Preschool believes strongly in the values of kindness and service to the community. Teachers use the Kindness Curriculum to promote these values as well as to reinforce social and emotional skills.

GSLP’s Kindness Curriculum is inspired by the program developed by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Healthy Minds. This program promotes mindfulness, teaching children to focus and to be aware of themselves and of how they are feeling. It asks children to consider how their feelings may affect their actions and teaches the importance of taking time to think before acting.

The Kindness Curriculum also promotes compassion and gratitude. GSLP has expanded this focus through integrating service projects throughout the year for students. Students will commit time and effort in creating gifts and cards, performing songs, collecting goods, and more as part of learning the importance of service to the community.

Music

Once a week, students participate in group music class. Music time provides experience in a larger group setting, instills a sense of community, and promotes familiarity with other classes. Children learn songs, play kid-friendly instruments, and learn rhythmic movements and dances.

Good Shepherd Lutheran Preschool students meet weekly for group music classes. During these sessions, students learn seasonal songs; play instruments such as handbells, resonator bells, shakers, and rhythm sticks; and follow cues to dance and perform fingerplays. Lyrics for favorite music class songs are shared in GSLP’s monthly newsletter so that families may sing along at home.

Lessons focus on the following fine arts topics adapted from Maryland’s Healthy Beginnings and Early Learning Assessment for preschool students, in addition to integrated literacy and math content:

  • Rhythm: Repeats rhythmic patterns with decreasing reliance on adult support and expands ability to create them.

  • Playing Rhythm Instruments: Uses instruments to follow increasingly complex musical patterns.

  • Singing: Responds to familiar songs and expands ability to repeat and create songs.

  • Response to Change: Recognizes familiar musical sounds and increases ability to respond to changes in music.

  • Following Directions and Cues: Follows directions or actions during increasingly complex singing games.

  • Dance: Moves body or parts of body to rhythmic sounds with increasing complexity and coordination. Dances with increasingly complex body movements. Dances with others in increasingly coordinated and complex ways.

Music is incorporated into the daily activities. In addition, music class is held weekly. During this group music time, two or more classes combine for 20 minutes to share songs and fingerplays relating to classroom topics. This group time fosters a sense of community within the school.

Music is a significant component of special events at Good Shepherd Preschool. Children learn seasonal songs to perform for families at events such as Fall Festival and the Closing Program. Music is also used to teach important academic concepts. Children learn songs featuring counting, colors, rhymes, and more. 

Art Philosophy

Good Shepherd Preschool believes that art primarily should be about the child's creative exploration of materials. This process-based approach sometimes means your child will bring home many "brown blob" pictures at first as they explore what happens when they mix all the colors together! Know that it is all a natural part of children's artistic development. Children become more intentional in their independent creations as the year progresses.

Some art projects take a more craft-oriented, teacher-led approach. These projects help children work on specific skills, such as following directions or cutting on a line.

Children also have access to a variety of art supplies at the art center every day as well. They may paint at the easel, create collages with paper scraps, or cover page after page in stickers and stick figures. Art like this can help build children's fine-motor control, which improves their ability to form letters.