Twos and Threes
Introduction to our
Ages 2.5 - 3.5
Two, three, or five full days per week
The Goldfinch School provides a home-away-from-home for children who are new to a school environment. At this age, students participate wholeheartedly in everything and learn naturally through imitation and imagination. Our 2s and 3s program, loving, warm, and secure, reflects this view of children. At this age, children’s play is their work. It’s how they experiment and problem-solve. Before they possess the necessary language skills to express the breadth and depth of their ideas verbally, they can express them through various forms of play (dramatic, imaginary, or physical). As they grow beyond the 2s and 3s program, play remains an essential way for our students to interact with each other and make sense of the world around them.
Young children are filled with joy and enthusiasm.
Experiential tasks, great and small, create a foundation for cognitive learning.
Our 2s and 3s program offers a warm and welcoming transition for the young child, who may be experiencing separation from parents for the first time. Teachers work with parents and children to support and encourage their growing independence beginning with a warm and welcoming drop-off ritual each morning.
Teachers support the children’s growth by working in meaningful activities such as cooking, gardening, and engaging in interesting discussions. The teachers nurture the children’s imagination by telling stories, singing, and encouraging free play.
Inspiring growth, each step of the way.
Through song and story, literacy and linguistic skills are strengthened, along with a sense of the beauty and expressiveness of language. Counting games, manipulatives, and rhyme provide a solid basis for memory and mathematical skills. Concentration, small-muscle development, and hand-eye coordination are all skills significantly promoted through tasks such as baking, drawing, finger knitting, sculpture, watercolor, and finger painting. Gross motor development is developed through creative movement, outdoor adventures, yoga, and climbing.
Through these experiences, each child has the opportunity to grow and develop in their actions, thoughts, and feelings. The qualities we value in adulthood are fostered here: creative and flexible thinking, inner conviction, self-discipline, personal freedom, and self-knowledge.
Discovery and exploration of the fundamental building blocks for their future learning journey.
The 2s and 3s program is a gateway to The Goldfinch School’s spiral curriculum, and even the youngest learners benefit from our holistic pedagogy. Just like the Pre-Kindergarten students, children in our 2s and 3s class participate in hands-on learning experiences that cross disciplines, such as planting an organic garden in which they release butterflies raised and studied in the classroom or painting arctic landscapes while listening to “winter” sounds.
Instruction in our 2s and 3s program focuses on introducing children to simple concepts and gradually building on them in complexity. Be it early mathematics, human anatomy, astronomy, landforms, biomes, architecture, or chemistry, we repeatedly expose children to concepts upon which we help them build up residual understandings.
