The Red Door (3s/4s) classroom serves as a bridge between the Blue Door and Yellow Door classrooms. It is a space for children to continue their social-emotional and physical growth, as well as introducing basic academic concepts. These academic concepts support cognitive development and growth that will serve as the foundation for skills and knowledge gained in later schooling.

 

Social-Emotional Development:

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At this age, children begin to interact and cooperate with their peers more than they have previously. Additionally, children are becoming more independent and learning how to be part of a classroom community. Some of the social-emotional skills we aim to develop and strengthen include:

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• Sharing materials with others

• Taking turns

• Waiting for a teacher’s attention/waiting to be called upon

• Approaching a teacher for help

• Verbally problem-solving with peers

• Including others when playing

• Accepting responsibility for own actions

• Transitioning between activities

• Accepting changes in the schedule

• Self-help skills (i.e. Cleaning up classroom materials/ spills)

• Making autonomous choices

 

Physical Development:

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As children develop greater confidence moving their bodies, they become more coordinated while holding smaller objects, running, jumping and climbing, etc. Two areas of physical growth that children develop and strengthen are fine-motor and gross-motor.

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Fine-motor skills:

• Manipulating small objects

• Eating while holding utensils

• Cutting with scissors

• Completing simple puzzles

• Holding writing/coloring utensils correctly

• Drawing and copying square and circle shapes

• Drawing a person with two to four body parts

• Beginning to copy some capital letters

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Gross-motor skills:

• Balancing/hopping on one foot

• Looking forward while running/walking

• Walking up and down stairs using alternating feet

• Having awareness of body in space

• Keeping appropriate physical distance from others

• Safely running without falling or bumping into other children

• Kicking a ball

• Increasing hand-eye coordination

 

Cognitive Development:

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Throughout the school year, children are making more meaningful connections between their learning and the physical world. Therefore, they are beginning to take in information in a deeper and more complex way. In the Red Door classroom, children engage with a multitude of activities and experiences that support their learning in mathematics, science, pre-literacy and expressive and receptive language.

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Mathematics skills include:

• Counting numbers 1-10

• Matching and sorting objects based on simple characteristics (i.e. size, color, shape, etc.)

• Identifying a few numbers

• Copying simple patterns

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Science skills include:

• Correctly identifying basic colors

• Using the five senses to make observations

• Using trial and error

• Asking questions and making predictions about how things work

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Pre-literacy skills include:

• Letter recognition

• Name recognition

• Learning that print has meaning

• Matching an object to a picture of the object

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Expressive and Receptive Language skills include:

• Understanding the concepts of “same” and “different”

• Mastering some basic rules of grammar

• Speaking clearly enough for strangers to understand

• Telling stories

• Following one-step and two-step directions