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We provide an opportunity for parents and children
to experience preschool together. They learn skills they need to
be supportive parents and good students.
All of our classes offer age appropriate play, learning experiences
and social activities. The play and learn centers in each class include
arts and crafts, science, music, cooking, block building, a playhouse
with dress-up costumes, a library, and activities tables
for puzzles, manipulatives and play-dough. Outside play areas include
swings, a large play structure, playhouses, children's garden, painting
easels, large sand areas, carpentry area, long tracks for bikes and
wheel toys, areas for water play and a large lawn and grassy hill.
Each day, our teachers share stories and encourage
children to participate in play, songs and fingerplays to develop
literacy and pre-reading skills. Children also develop early math
skills with counting and sorting activities. Our arts and craft
area is always ready with fresh projects where children are
encouraged to experiment through the process of creating. They explore
sensory experiences and science through activities with a wide variety
of materials and projects about plants, animals and natural phenomena.
Starting in the Fall of 2005 APPS became a licensed
Music Together preschool. As such we have implemented a program that
has been internationally recognized since 1987. Music is learned
through developmentally appropriate activities that support and respect
the unique learning style of very young children. The children also “bring
the music home” with CDs and songbooks.
Our children also enjoy regularly scheduled holiday parties
and field trips throughout the school year. Some of the favorite
excursions include trips to the Pumpkin Patch, Youth Science
Institute, Japanese Friendship Gardens, the Planetarium at DeAnza
College, and the Caltrain trip to Palo Alto.
APPS is proud to be an "intercultural" preschool.
Our curriculum explores how music and art have been enriched by
the contribution of each culture or ethnic group. At APPS, those
cultural enrichments are explored at a preschool level as we seek
to emphasize that different cultures can successfully cooperate
and grow together within one society.
At the core of all of our structured and unstructured
activities, children are encouraged to explore, experiment and experience.
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