Preschool Program

Start Date
August 21, 2023

Early education is so important to long-term school success. At SJSD preschool, your child will build skills in literacy & math. They will learn to solve problems and make friends. They will become stronger and gain control in motor tasks. But your preschooler will only gain these benefits if he attends regularly. Preschoolers who miss just two days per month reach kindergarten at lower levels of readiness and by 2nd grade, chronic absence has an impact on reading proficiency.

Some absences are unavoidable. Young children do get sick, especially when they first start school. If you are having difficulty getting your child to school because of something besides sickness, please reach out to us. If we see that your child is frequently absent, we will reach out to you to find out if we can help.

Transportation
The St. Joseph School District is offering transportation to all preschoolers with First Student. To facilitate this process, the children have been placed in classrooms according to their home or alternate busing address. We anticipate that most children will be riding the bus. If you choose to transport your preschooler, she/he will still be placed in preschool according to your home address.

If you transport your child, we require that you follow building arrival and dismissal plans.

Young students who have identified developmental delays may be eligible to attend classes that provide early childhood special education. These children, ages three through pre-kindergarten, demonstrate a need for Individualized Educational Programs (IEP). The St. Joseph School District offers a variety of classrooms with ECSE staff, and children are placed in classrooms based on their strengths, needs and goals.

Children will still need to complete the screening process.

Developmental Stages of Play
Play is an important part of a child's development. Through play, children explore and learn about their world as well as developing imagination, creativity, social skills, and problem solving skills. It is important to remember that children move through the different levels of play at different rates. Personality traits as well as life experiences affect children's movement through the stages of play.

Developmental Math Concepts
Early development of number concepts is critical in developing positive attitudes about mathematics at an early age. In addition to the these concepts, don't forget that patterning, sorting, classifying, and measuring are also great math skills to practice before kindergarten.

Stages of Art
From the moment a child begins to make markings on paper, he begins the first in a series of developmental stages that will continue throughout their life. All children go through these stages, yet the pace differs with each individual child.

Stages of Writing
These stages represent a way of looking at writing development in young children. All stages overlap and children progress and reach writing stages at many different ages. The development of early writing skills is another aspect of your child's emergent literacy development. Regardless of which stage your child is at, writing development can be enhanced through being encouraged to write on a regular basis.