Welcome

 The preschool years are very important. We want your children to be as ready as possible for kindergarten. This is not just about knowing letters and numbers. It's also about knowing how to learn and get along with others.  Behavior Therapist on staff implements our social emotional learning curriculum (SEL) and provides support and strategies to teachers and families of children displaying socially significant behaviors.  Our social emotional learning curriculum will teach these important skills.

Throughout the school year, we teach them skills in the following four areas:

1. Skills for Learning

2. Empathy

3. Emotion Management

4. Friendship Skills & Problem Solving

When children enjoy having books read to them and when they are excited about what they are hearing and learning, children are motivated to learn to read and, later, read to learn.  Children practice reading more often when that find it enjoyable and useful.  By reading a lot, children increase their fluency, or the ease and accuracy with which they recognize words and comprehend the text.

At Archangels Academy we focus on the important components of literacy to create a high quality literacy program.  The seven components are: literacy as a source of enjoyment, vocabulary and language, phonological awareness, knowledge of print, letters and words, comprehension, and books and other texts.  

By using Intentional Teaching Strategies we are able to observe children effectively and to assess and evaluate their development and learning.

Through observation of young children, we have come to know and understand that mathematics is already a part of their world--and they love it!  

We play an important  role at Archangels Academy in bridging children's informal understanding of mathematics with more formal school-based mathematics.  That is, you design the learning environment by purposely placing mathematics materials in interest areas for child-initiated explorations and by intentionally introducing activities with a mathematics focus.  

In this way, your children are taught numbers and operations, geometry and spatial sense, measurement and patterns.  

Research shows that children's inquiry skills are best supported through hands-on, project-based investigations. Starting with what the children already know, we will work together with them to develop questions, investigate to find answers, ask follow-up questions, & reflect on what they've learned.  

Our students investigate the important areas of Physical Science, Earth Science, and Life Science. For technology concepts, there are four components of technology standards that apply to preschool children: awareness of technology; basic operations and concepts; tools and equipment; & people and technology.

As early as infancy, children are aware of certain social studies concepts. They recognize members of their family and understand daily routines. Preschool children pretend and interact as members of the larger community. Social studies learning encourages them to share information about themselves, discuss and even debate.

By incorporating the following four social studies objectives for development & learning, the children will explore how people live in communities, interact with their environment, reflect on their past, & understand their surroundings:

1. Knowledge about self

2. Basic Understanding of people & how they live

3. Change related to familiar people or places

4. Simple geographic knowledge 

The arts have an extremely powerful impact on the development of young children's comprehension of the world in which they play a significant part as individuals. Along with nurturing children's development of a sense of self, children's imagination and creativity are encouraged  and "evoked, stimulated, and developed" through young children's active engagement in various artistic endeavors.

We support children's learning of the arts in alignment with the related four arts objectives for development and learning:

1. Visual Arts

2. Musical Concepts & Expression

3. Dance & Movement Concepts

4. Drama Through Actions & Language

Our Greek Language and Hellenic Heritage studies provides our students with learning that is engaging, meaningful and important.  Our students attend daily lessons in small group and basic topics are covered.  Our lessons include greetings, prayers, numbers, colors, animals, family, body parts and feelings.

The Orthodox Faith is the core component and foundation of our school. Our mission is to provide each student a full appreciation of our Orthodox Christian Faith and its values.   Our  students begin by learning about and exploring the basics of the Christian Faith, learning simple prayers and what prayer means.  The children begin each day with prayer and end each day by venerating the class icon.  Students are spoken to daily and taught about the Saint of the day.  Our students attend liturgy and partake in Holy Communion whenever possible.