Beginners (Ages 3.2 – 4.2 years)
In our Beginners Program, children find daily opportunities to discover the joy of learning and become critical thinkers through hands-on experiences. The classroom offers a safe and nurturing environment where children learn to navigate their social relationships. As they play in a child-centered environment, they develop a positive attitude, build self-esteem, and adapt to daily routines.
Pre-literacy and math skills, as well as fine and gross motor skills, are explored in open-ended activities and structured group time. In addition to these core areas, students enjoy classes in the fine and performing arts, library, and physical education. It is our goal to create a classroom community where children feel comfortable asking questions and taking risks. Full-day and half-day programs available
Pre-Kindergarten (Ages 4.3 – 5 years)
The Sage School’s Pre-Kindergarten (Pre-K) is specifically designed for bright young students who might be in need of a more advanced and enriching school program and environment. The Pre-K experience seeks to offer challenges that gifted preschool students rarely find in programs among same-age peers. The content is sensitive to students’ interests and is presented in depth. Sage’s youngest students may become experts on topics like the Ice Age and how water facilitates life, while math, literacy, and social/emotional skills are interwoven into the lessons.
Our Pre-K is a play-based, imaginative, and nurturing program where students are often able to move from concrete ideas into the world of abstract concepts. They generally think critically about the world around them and are encouraged to pursue creative interests. It is most helpful to think of this program as one that delivers both a preschool and kindergarten curriculum. Our Pre-K program is full day.
The descriptions below are overviews of our program; we invite you to come for a visit to see our classes in action and learn more about our curriculum.
In our Beginners and Pre-Kindergarten reading program, students are exposed daily to both fiction and non-fiction print and enjoy read alouds, shared reading, and weekly meetings with their eighth grade reading buddies. Our faculty focuses on phonemic awareness, letter identification, and letter/sound correspondence. Our reading groups are based on individual abilities. Teachers monitor and evaluate such skills as listening comprehension, reading comprehension-making connections, questioning, predicting to name a few. Students are asked to retell a story to include beginning, middle and end of the story.
In writing, we work on fine motor development, using the Handwriting Without Tears curriculum to support handwriting and journal writing lessons.
In math, our Beginners and Pre-K students understand and use math vocabulary. They learn to rote count to 100 and study 1:1 correspondence, number identification, 2D and 3D shapes, and simple and complex patterns. Students also sort and classify groups, graph and interpret data, and learn the calendar days of the week, months, year, as well as time awareness – yesterday/today/tomorrow.
The goal of our Beginners and PK Science Curriculum is to foster children’s natural curiosity about the world around them and broaden their procedural and thinking skills in order to lay the foundation for basic scientific skills. Our science program is hands-on and includes topics that are highly appealing to this age group. All concepts are integrated throughout all the disciplines. Beginners and PK students have the opportunity to work with a variety of materials (Ozobots, Scratch Jr, etc.) to help them understand computer programming. By engaging in a variety of age-appropriate challenges, our students are introduced to the engineering design process.
Through collaborative, tactile activities and projects, our youngest students at Sage are able to explore the full range of artistic disciplines while working on fine and gross motor skills, foundational arts, and interpersonal skills. Students learn the different ways they can express themselves and relate to their peers and the greater world around them.
Children in our Beginners and Pre-Kindergarten programs learn to identify all the parts of a book, e.g., spine, cover, title, verso page, barcode. They are taught to recognize the differences between fiction and nonfiction as they begin to find resources independently in the library.
The goal of the health and physical education program for Beginners and Pre-K is to help students develop a sense of body control and teach them how to move throughout space in a variety of different situations. Students learn how to be a productive member of a group or team when working in competitive and cooperative environments as well as how to participate in a variety of different physical activities. Ultimately, we want our students to develop a desire to remain physically active in and out of school.