Fair Oaks Preschool
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Philosophy

Our learning community is a truly unique place where children and educators come together to learn from one another. We embrace play as the core of all learning and work hard to protect the magnificence of childhood through providing ample opportunities to play, dance, explore, hypothesize,  take risks, make mistakes and honor successes.

We believe that children are competent, capable learners who have much to contribute to their learning community. The aim of the program is to respond to the needs of every child as s/he develops awareness of the world and a curiosity for learning. Each classroom provides developmentally appropriate materials and activities for our children in the areas of social/emotional learning, cognitive learning, fine and gross motor development, self help skills and much, much more.

Through planned experiences and provocations for learning, children are challenged to explore their world, solve problems, develop physically, and expand language skills and concepts. Teachers nurture a sense of competence and self-worth in every child, which allows them to be willing to take risks and dive deeper into their learning experiences. Our goal for our learners as they move on in the next phases in life are to be able to access the resources around them to be successful, to identify was to unravel cognitive knots in learning, be able to persevere when feeling stuck and be able to engage in self regulatory experiences with ease. Research shows that the children who are ready for kindergarten and life in general are the ones who are able to easily socially navigate the world, work through challenges problems, and is able to persevere in the face of adversity or difficulties. 

Our children experience a variety of small group and large group experiences each day. Our small groups allow us to offer a more intimate experience for our children that leads to a deeper level of exploration, inquiry and discovery. Our philosophy is an eclectic collection of "best practices" in early childhood education. We are influenced by Reggio Emilia philosophy,  Montessori, RIE and project based learning. While we do not adopt one specific practice we utilize the best practices from each to create our own pedagogy of learning.