What to Expect at Preschool: The Schedule
Whether your child is at school for a few hours or all day, she'll settle into a familiar rhythm filled with lots of learning opportunities.
Your child's busy preschool schedule will include time for books every day.
If you attended preschool yourself, you may wonder how your child's experience will compare to your own. As it turns out, the classrooms and daily routines are not as different as you might think. Preschoolers need to be physically, socially, cognitively, and artistically active, says Marilou Hyson, associate executive director for professional development at the National Association for the Education of Young Children. They learn by playing, exploring, questioning, and experimenting.
Young children like to know what will happen and when, says Hyson. They benefit from a schedule that is familiar and predictable, but not rigid. The schedule should have both balance and variety. In each classroom the sequence of daily activities will be slightly different, but will follow a predictable pattern. There will be times to do things together as a group and times to work independently. There will be times to sit quietly and draw, times to do puzzles or listen to stories, and times to move vigorously. Your child will have opportunities to initiate activities: build a tower with blocks, cut out shapes, paint at an easel. There will also be activities led by the teacher such as learning a new song or listening to a story.
Daily classroom routines typically include:
Circle or group time: Children sit together and the teacher initiates a conversation about topics such as the weather, the calendar, the seasons, a field trip, or an upcoming holiday. Sometimes she leads a discussion about a special theme or group project. The children learn concepts of time and space and gain new vocabulary words.
Free choice: Children choose from a variety of different activities available in the classroom: block building, puzzles, dress-up, water or sand play, drawing, or painting. They initiate their own play, either alone or with other children. They learn how to work independently, take turns, share, and play cooperatively with others.
Group activity: During this time, children may learn a song or dance. They may participate in making up a story, preparing a meal, planning a village, or working on a science or art project. They practice new skills, develop fine motor control, learn how to communicate their ideas and needs effectively, and how to work together as a team.
Snack: As they eat, preschoolers learn social and practical skills: how to set the table, to pass the juice and crackers, to carry on a conversation.
Outdoor play: Climbing, running, jumping, bouncing balls, and crawling through tunnels helps children develop large muscle control, motor coordination, and balance.
Clean-up: As they clear the table or put away the blocks, children learn how to plan, organize, and work with others.
Story time: Children gather together in a comfortable corner of the room to listen as the teacher tells a story or reads from a book. They look at the illustrations and discuss them. The teacher asks questions about the story, helping children to learn to predict what will happen next. She encourages them to think about the characters and plot and to use new vocabulary from the story.
Special events: There will be occasional variations in the daily routine for class trips related to special interests, such as a visit to a local restaurant to see how food is prepared, to a bank to learn about money, to the park to look at leaves or discover what lives under that rock. Special visitors like police officers, firefighters, or doctors will also come to the classroom occasionally. Sometimes parents will come in to share a special skill or cultural tradition.
How to Help at Home:
- Know you child's schedule and be familiar with daily routines.
- Encourage your child to talk about what he is doing at school. Ask what he did when he arrived in the morning and what happened just before he came home. Ask about the story the teacher told or read.
- Maintain a predictable schedule at home so your child is used to knowing what will happen and when it will happen.
- Get to know your child's teacher and let your child know that you like and respect her.
- Relax. Remember — no matter what is going on in the classroom, the teacher will be there to guide, facilitate, and encourage your child's learning experiences.
Diana Townsend-Butterworth is a former teacher and head of the junior school at St. Bernard's School in New York City, and the author of Your Child's First School and Preschool and Your Child.
