Pre-Kindergarten 3 & 4: Helping Children Grow

Focused On Social, Emotional, Intellectual And Spiritual Development

Start your child’s educational journey with the early childhood education program at St. Francis. Open to 3- and 4-year-olds, our program is licensed by the state of Maryland. We offer a multi-faceted approach that encourages each child to grow socially, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually.

In our loving, faith-filled environment, we start each student on the path to becoming a lifelong learner. Our Pre-K program focuses on five key areas:

Religion

Religion plays a central role in our early childhood education, as children learn their faith through art, music and stories in our academic curriculum. They also participate in our prayer services and weekly Mass on Wednesdays.

The children also will learn to express their faith through several prayers, including The Sign of the Cross, The Lord’s Prayer, Hail Mary and before and after meal grace.

Reading And Math

We also start teaching the children the fundamentals of reading and math, using lessons that are aligned with the State of Maryland’s curriculum. We want to make sure they’re prepared for kindergarten classes with a strong understanding of both math and reading basics.

Handwriting

Using the Handwriting Without Tears program, Pre-K students begin to learn letter formation in a developmentally appropriate, multisensory way. By starting the handwriting lessons in our early childhood education program, we believe we are paving the way for them to become strong writers, readers and communicators.

Sign Language

Our students broaden their understanding of communication with the introduction of sign language lessons. In class, they learn basic instructions, how to sign the alphabet and the days of the week. As their knowledge grows, they learn how to sign the Pledge of Allegiance and sign songs with their classmates.

Science

At St. Francis, we use a program called LabLearner to start introducing children to science. The children complete age-appropriate, hands-on experiments to start learning the scientific method. Starting out with elemental scientific concepts, the lessons build on each other, increasing each student’s knowledge and preparing them for kindergarten.