Preschool and Kindergarten Program

Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning.

Play is really the work of childhood.

Fred Rogers

Knott Sky Child Development Center

Find out how to enroll in Early Childhood classes for the 2024-25 school year here!

  • Our child-led curriculum is always in flux, as we plan activities based on children’s interests, implement these plans, observe students, and reflect on their engagement and growth. This approach to early childhood education is commonly referred to as the Curriculum Planning cycle.

    For example, the month of April might be a time when children may be interested in blooming plants & new plant life in the environment around them. Throughout the month, teachers could plan activities around systems of growth that engage multiple disciplines and areas of development:

    · Social & Emotional Learning | Playing group games as bees/pollinators and flowers with colored scarves

    · Cognitive | Meeting in group conversations to draw or write down what children know about what plants need to live.

    · Physical Development, Fine & Gross Motor Skills | Providing leaf-shape silhouettes, flower petals and open-ended materials for artistic experimentation. Digging, planting and magnifying tools in outdoor learning spaces.

    · Language Development & Literacy | Setting up play invitations with photo and vocabulary cards showing different aspects of plant life.

    · Emergent Math | Making ABAB and ABBA patterns with seeds, sticks, leaves and other outdoor materials

    · Nature Discovery/Science | Constructing a worm bin as a class, learning about compost together and watching our food scraps become healthy soil for planting.

    In this way, target skills and learning objectives are woven into each child’s day in ways that are exciting and provide many avenues of access and exploration.

  • Early childhood classes are offered for children 3 to entry into 1st grade. Students must turn 3 by September 1st of the school year in question, and be fully independent with toileting.

    Extensive research has shown that play-based programs are the most developmentally-appropriate for young children. Open-ended environments that support children’s agency allow them to experiment with schemas they are learning, work at their own pace, and effectively explore new skill sets.

  • Our classroom is your classroom. We love working with families, and have created our program with parent participation in mind. The number of volunteer shifts your family is responsible for each year is the same as the number of sessions your child attends weekly.

    For example, if your child attends 4 sessions per week, your family would sign up for 4 shifts for that school year.

    While you are welcome to volunteer for more shifts, we kept our volunteer requirement low to keep our program accessible to everyone.

  • We enthusiastically offer robust needs-based scholarship funding. More details can be found in the Scholarships tab below.

    Fees

    Class fees are $66 per session, and can be as low as $16.50 per session with scholarship funding.

    For a child attending morning sessions from 9am-12pm, this amounts to $264 per week, or as low as $66 per week with scholarship funding.

    For a child attending all seven AM + PM sessions each week, class fees would be $462 per week, or as low as $115.50 per week with scholarship funding.

    SCHEDULE

    Class sessions are held Monday through Thursday, from 9am-12pm and 12pm to 3pm. We will add a Wednesday afternoon session from 12-3 beginning in the 2025-26 school year.

    Children who are 3 years old may attend up to one session per day. Children aged 4 & up may attend any number of sessions desired.

  • Our desire is to keep classes affordable and accessible for our students whenever & however possible.

    We prioritize scholarship funding for students whose families make less than 350% of the 2024 Federal Poverty Level (FPL) for their family size first, and award remaining scholarship funding based on financial need. Our foremost goal is to support your family to the best of our capacity.

    You can apply for scholarship funds once your child has been accepted into our program. However, you can easily check your eligibility below, and you are welcome to email us prior to submitting your enrollment request to ensure we have remaining funds for the school year you’d like to attend.

    You can check your eligibility here.

    Please Note: Children must be attending a minimum of 4 sessions per week to receive funding.

  • We are constantly observing our students, and we are as hungry to learn more about their interests as they are! Through teacher support and observations, we will identify areas of development where children are working comfortably, as well as realms where they may need run into challenges and need additional support.

    Parent-teacher conferences are held mid-year.

  • Our Preschool and Kindergarten are held at the Knott Sky Child Development Center, which is a licensed childcare center. As such, the state of California and Community Care and Licensing Division have requirements around school vaccinations. Learn more here.

The Knott Sky Child Development Center

We could not be more excited about this chapter for our program in Knott Sky Park. We’re collecting histories about the Knott Family’s historic building and the past 40 years of Knott Sky Park Preschool. If you have any photos, personal experiences, or stories we’d love it if you shared them with us for the archive we’re building.

Making education accessible is a community effort! We are profoundly grateful for the essential work being done by our fiscal sponsors, Arts Connection and for the continued generosity of the Dale and Edna Walsh Foundation.