UPK students work in one of many play-based interest areas. When children construct, create and represent their experiences with blocks, they progress in all areas of development including social-emotional, physical, language and literacy, and cognitive growth. Submitted photo

Jamestown Public School’s Universal Prekindergarten teachers recently explored a “study” of trees in their summer training for a new creative curriculum. The teachers were told their study would be about apple trees, which are found locally. The teachers were given an apple and asked to cut it. They were then asked to come up with everything they could think of to explore about that apple with a child. Next, the real apple was replaced with a toy apple and the teachers were asked to eliminate teaching opportunities from their original list. Finally, they were given a worksheet about an apple that the students would fill out. The teachers quickly realized that the real apple gave the most engaging, hands-on exploration relating to apple trees than any of the other choices.

The teachers discovered the benefits of the new Creative Curriculum for Preschool students that features exploration and discovery as a way of learning for the district’s youngest students. The Creative Curriculum for Preschool is a comprehensive, research-based curriculum that enables children to develop confidence, creativity and lifelong critical thinking skills. All Jamestown and Head Start UPK students will receive the new curriculum and it fits perfectly with the district’s vision of “we see every child learning every day.”

“The research shows that teachers who use the Creative Curriculum in their UPK classrooms see positive effects in the areas of early literacy, written expression, teacher-child relationships and language, in just the first year of implementation,” said Brandi Meacham, JPS Early Childhood Instructional Coach. “It is designed to help educators at all levels of experience plan and implement a developmentally appropriate, content-rich program for children with diverse backgrounds and skill levels.”

Children learn through in-depth investigations of meaningful topics called “studies,” which are hands-on and project-based. There are different studies for the district’s three-year-old and four-year-old classes including topics such as: balls, buildings, trees, clothes, insects and reduce/reuse/recycle. Within each study topic, there are 38 research-based objectives in categories such as: social-emotional, language, physical, cognitive, literacy, math, science and technology, social studies, the arts and English language acquisition. The studies are student-led based on a question of the day or week with learning through hands-on activities and meaningful, play-based interest areas. Students are encouraged to explore and experiment to extend their learning. Students are also encouraged to take “notes” with their own clipboards, paper and pencils, even if the “notes” are pictures they draw about the subject. This helps encourage the students’ love of writing and reading starting at a young age.

An important part of the studies is to have children raise questions about the topic, and, through exploration and discovery, they find answers to their questions. Studies offer children a myriad of ways to learn about each topic. The studies are topics that are relevant to children’s everyday experiences and community. They are engaging, exciting and tap into children’s natural curiosity, resulting in a learning environment that is both fun and intentional.

The studies also allow children to explore science and social studies topics while developing skills in language and literacy, math, technology and the arts. They use meaningful, real-life contexts. The studies encourage higher level thinking, give children the necessary skills to solve problems and find answers in a creative way and support the development of social-emotional skills such as: resolving conflict, sharing responsibility and working collaboratively.

“I’m most excited about the endless possibilities for projects and learning.” explained Bush Elementary School UPK teacher Terry Smith.

An important part of the curriculum is to encourage family involvement. As part of the studies there is always a “wow” experience to help students bring the study to life. Jamestown UPK teachers will use family engagement surveys to find out if anyone can help out with a “wow” experience. For example, maybe someone’s father is an architect and can help talk about the “building” study. Or someone else works in a retail store and can talk about how clothing is sold as part of the “clothes” study. The goal is to get families involved in their child’s education from the beginning.

The implementation of Creative Curriculum for Preschool for our youngest learners is a part of the district’s larger work towards a guaranteed and viable curriculum that ensures that all students have an equal opportunity to learn.