How do we use our curriculum to help set your child up for success?

It's one thing to have dozens of curriculum books and guidelines, but how does High Point Academy take these principles and turn them in to a fun, engaging experience for our youngest learners?

Here are just 5 of the many methods that we utilize to implement our curriculum to help your child grow and develop.

Weekly Focus and Lesson Plans

Our curriculum plan, developed with State standards in mind, is designed to guide teachers' instruction each day. Our lesson plans are given to our staff ready to be implemented with students. We choose this strategy to allow teachers to focus on how to engage the students in the materials and encourage them to learn to their highest ability.

Each week, your child's classroom will have a weekly focus, which will detail all of the concepts they will be discussing each week. The following concepts are introduced to your child:

Theme of the Week (This is our over-arching theme that the whole school explores, such as Fire Safety, Nutrition, or Around the World!)
Letter
Number
Color
Shape
Opposite
Value (for more information on our character education program, please click here.)

In addition to these concepts, our students aged 3 and up will be introduced to the following concepts:

Literacy (such as retelling a story, understanding setting, or exploring compound words)
Mathematics (such as number recognition, patterns, or graphing)
Sight Word (using the Dolch Pre-Primer list)
Word Family (VPK only)

Daily Schedule

Each room's daily schedule of activities is selected using developmentally-appropriate practice and is always subject to adjustments to better fit the needs of the group.

At minimum, each classroom will do the following:

Breakfast, Lunch, and Afternoon Snack
Outdoor Play in both the morning and afternoon
Circle Time as a whole group
Small-Group Instruction or "Centers"
Story Time
Nap/Rest Times
Free Play and Exploration
Music and Movement

Circle Time

Circle Time is a whole-group activity that each classroom will partake in daily. This allows students a chance to:

Come together and welcome each other to another beautiful day at High Point Academy
Transition from free play to structured learning time, and be introduced to what activities they will be engaging in during center rotations
Be introduced to new concepts, by discussing their weekly focus
Review previous concepts, like letters and their sounds, colors, shapes, calendar, etc
Review classroom positive classroom commitments or "rules"

Small Group Rotations aka "Centers" and Interest Areas

The bulk of our students learning will take place during daily small group rotations. These "centers" involve students moving among the classrooms interest areas to complete different activities.

Rotation activities are a mix of both teacher-led and student-directed activities. For example, there will be one or two activities in which students will need teachers to help guide them, such as a literacy or math center. However, there will also be activities where students are encouraged to play and discover freely with teacher supervision and intervention only in situations of safety instead, such as sensory or dramatic play.
Teachers will move about the room from activity to activity, encouraging students to expand their play and thinking through open-ended question.
Interest Areas may include: Art, Language and Literacy, Mathematics, Sensory, Woodworking, Science and Discovery, Technology, Manipulatives and Table Toys, Blocks, Dramatic Play, and Library

Conscious Discipline and Safe Place

High Point Academy is an active participant in the Conscious Discipline Program. This program involves focusing on redirection and explanation in order to promote the behaviors we do want to see rather than focusing on behaviors we wish not to see.

Methods of behavior management that we employ at High Point Academy are:

Reward systems— For older students, we utilize a money method, treasure box, or other system where students can earn for positive behaviors.
Positive Reinforcement— The child will be encouraged when they are demonstrating acceptable/preferred behaviors.
Redirection— The child is redirected to another activity and given an opportunity to try again at another time.
"If… Then" Statements— A statement in which the child is encouraged to make a positive choice. Example "If you pick up the blocks, then you can go to the Dramatic Play area."
Safe Place— A spot in the classroom where students can go when they feel overwhelmed, need to calm down, or just need a moment away from the group. This area has stuffed animals, fidget toys, representations of different emotions, and other methods of regulation. Students enter the safe place, are able to calm down if necessary, and then can use pictures or words to discuss with teachers what has upset them and how they can return to the groups' activities.

Under no circumstances is corporal punishment used in our program.