Academics

Early Childhood

Junior and Senior Pre-K Program Overview

At The Weiss School, the early childhood program includes Junior and Senior Pre-Kindergarten that educates 3, 4, and 5-year-old students. Each of our early learners is provided the skills and support systems to blossom in a safe, nurturing learning environment while developing their cognitive, emotional, physical, and social skills. Early childhood students learn through play and social interaction, which fosters the development of social concepts and skills through imaginative and structured independent and cooperative playtime.
 
At The Weiss School, the Learning Through Play philosophy produces the following results for students:
  • increase their understanding of themselves, peers, and their environment
  • increase their language and communication skills
  • increase their creativity and imagination skills
  • increase and improve physical coordination and manual dexterity
  • learn to better interact with peers by taking turns, cooperating, negotiating, and playing together by established rules
  • improve their emotional well-being during positive play experiences as they interact and bond with peers and adults 
The early childhood program teachers provide young children with a solid foundation in essential early literacy skills, including pre-reading and pre-writing, along with practice in age-appropriate concepts and processes.

The early childhood program curriculum integrates academic learning across multiple academic disciplines by facilitating understanding and skill development among young children. As needed, our early childhood program also implements advanced curriculum opportunities to facilitate and encourage academically gifted practices.

In addition, technology in our early childhood classrooms provides children with the foundational skills to become technologically literate students and establish a pathway toward the acquisition of 21st-century skills.

List of 5 items.

  • Language and Literacy

    Language and Literacy instruction helps students:
    • develop oral language, listening, speaking, and vocabulary skills
    • explore the basic concepts of print and increase understanding of sounds, letters, and letter-sound relationship
    • increase vocabulary that reflects their growing knowledge of the world
    • discover their environment and develop the conceptual, experimental, and language foundations necessary for learning and writing
  • Math

    Math instruction helps students:
    • identify numbers and their meaning
    • depict similarities and differences when sorting and identifying appropriate categories
    • formulate collections of given quantities
    • represent amounts in several different ways
    • use relative language when contrasting two objects, pictures, shapes, and collections
  • Science

    Science instruction helps students:
    • use all five senses to formulate careful observations of objects, organisms, and events
    • raise questions regarding objects and events in their environment
    • engage in primary investigations by making predictions, gathering, and interpreting data, recognizing simple patterns, and drawing conclusions
    • work collaboratively with others, share, and discuss ideas, and listen to new viewpoints
  • Social Studies

    Social Studies instruction helps students:
    • develop responsibility for their individual self-being
    • positively consider other people's ideas, thoughts, and feelings
    • develop respect for people from different cultures, genders, ethnicities, and abilities
    • show an understanding of aspects of diversity through discussions and representations
    • understand the meaning behind various holiday and cultural celebrations
  • Self-Knowledge and Social Skills

    Self-Knowledge and Social Skill instruction helps students:
    • develop a positive sense of self
    • develop self-confidence in coping skills
    • develop self-knowledge/self-awareness skills
    • take risks and persevere to complete new challenges or tasks
The early childhood curriculum integrates 5 essential areas of development for young children:

  • Cognitive Investigations
  • Emotional Needs
  • Imaginative Creativity
  • Physical Play
  • Social Interactions

Our well-rounded program also embraces a thematic approach that enables children to explore and understand their environment as they develop communication and creativity skills. The program incorporates learning activities across supplemental areas, including:
 
  • Art & Cartooning
  • Physical Education
  • Music
  • Spanish
  • Technology
  • Media
The Weiss School is a co-ed private school that serves gifted students in PreK-3 through 8th grade in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. A Weiss School education prepares students to think analytically and creatively, act socially responsible, live vigorously, and create imaginatively in a warm and supportive educational environment.