Peter Panda 
This Peter Panda class is for children who will turn four years of age by September first.
This is a pre-kindergarten classroom with a delicately blended balance of play and academics with the goal of preparing each child for today's rigorous kindergarten environments. 

Children in the Peter Panda class enjoy carefully prepared centers, along with both child-directed and teacher-directed instruction. Peter Panda provides an early-childhood educational environment full of joy and interaction with caring teachers.  The children enjoy a developmentally-appropriate environment.  Art, music, play and movement are all an integral part of the learning process in the Peter Panda classroom. Our teachers  provide intentional learning opportunities that reflect a sincere concern for every child's physical, social/emotional/ cognitive/ language and spiritual growth.

The Handwriting Without Tears® curriculum is used in this class for handwriting and literacy. The Kid Writing® concepts of beginning writing are integrated into the curriculum with individualized attention and journal writing as part of the learning experience. Bible stories are carefully integrated within each classroom theme. 

Berenstain Bear (This class is enrollment dependent)
The Berenstain Bear class is designed for children who are 5 by December 31st. This class is often used as a “growing” year and base the lessons and environment on the needs for children who either would have qualified for kindergarten, or are fall birthdays and are ready for a more academic preschool classroom.
As with all of our classes here at Maple Grove Preschool, we believe that  play is the work of childhood, and this class would encourage the highest level of play, which is cooperative play, according to researcher Mildred Parten.  
The Berenstain Bear class emphasizes one-on-one teaching opportunities as the enrollment doesn’t go past 10, allowing for a low teacher to student ratio.  The students are taught at the developmental level for the average five year old, realizing that they have longer attention spans than the average four year old. Lesson planning includes challenging activities and interactive circle time.
This class integrates science through hands-on experiments and cooking activities. It has carefully organized centers that intentionally focus on literacy, math and science skills. Children enjoy the concepts of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math) through fun, interactive activities. The students work on the refining of handwriting skills through the use of the Handwriting Without Tears kindergarten level curriculum, emphasizing both lower-case and capital letters and personal writing journals for each child using the Kid-Writing ® Program.
 

This year's curriculum: