Early Childhood (PreK - K)

Performing Arts: Students explore music, theater, and movement in fun and engaging ways. They learn to use their voices, bodies, and imaginations to tell stories, make creative choices, and work collaboratively with peers. Through singing, rhythm, improvisation, and ensemble activities, children build confidence, self-expression, and a joy for performance that extends beyond the stage.

Visual Arts: Students explore concepts like line, shape, and color. Art activities are closely connected to what’s happening in the classroom through the emergent curriculum, allowing children to translate their learning into creative expression while building on art concepts.

Literacy in our Early Childhood years grows out of children’s natural love of stories, language, and discovery. Our teachers nurture this foundation through classroom conversations, reading experiences, and daily opportunities to play with words, sounds, and ideas.

Reading and writing emerge hand in hand. In Early Childhood literacy work, students learn the function of writing, the mechanics of letter formation, and how to express their thoughts in words and sentences that convey meaning. Through storytelling, students use their voices and bodies to bring ideas to life and share stories with others. Through interactive read-alouds, stories become an opportunity to build reading comprehension. This helps children make sense of what they read or hear, asking and answering essential questions about stories and books. With letter/sound correspondence and phonemic awareness, students learn to recognize letters, connect them to sounds, and play with language through segmenting, blending, and rhyming. As confidence builds, children begin to see themselves as readers and writers. They learn to organize their thoughts into a beginning, middle, and end, use punctuation to clarify meaning, and distinguish between fiction and nonfiction.

We use a multi-sensory approach to help students explore math in hands-on, engaging ways, building early number sense, reasoning, problem-solving skills, and strategies while encouraging risk-taking and the ability to explain their thinking. 

Math learning often happens collaboratively. Children work with partners to build structures, solve puzzles, and share materials. They explore shapes and patterns through block play, art, and construction activities, noticing symmetry, balance, and design. Sorting and classifying materials by color, size, or shape helps them make sense of order, sequence, and categories. One-to-one correspondence and subitizing help with counting and comparison.

Over time, these experiences expand into more complex reasoning. Children predict what comes next in a sequence, count by twos, fives, and tens, and use simple addition and subtraction to solve everyday challenges. They measure, estimate, and explore geometric shapes in their surroundings, gaining a concrete understanding of spatial relationships.

We value the whole child, and movement is an essential part of their growth and development. Our Physical Education Program gets students moving in a variety of fun and creative ways, helping them build motor skills while discovering the joys of fitness and sports. Interscholastic sports begin in Fifth Grade, giving students the opportunity to take their skills to a team setting and continue developing confidence, teamwork, and a lifelong love of movement.

Our science curriculum centers on the process of sensemaking, which engages students in the same practices scientists use: asking questions, conducting investigations, analyzing data, and using evidence to support their conclusions.

In Early Childhood, students develop a sense of wonder about the world through hands-on exploration of physical, life, and earth sciences. Play and experimentation provide the foundation for early scientific inquiry as children explore forces like push and pull by rolling cars, using wheelbarrows, moving tires, and constructing marble runs. They experiment with balance and motion as they build with blocks and Magna-Tiles, discovering how weight, shape, and structure affect movement and stability. These early engineering experiences foster problem-solving, persistence, and creativity.

Our focus on the natural world deepens children’s awareness of living things and their environments. They explore interdependent relationships of animals and plants in ecosystems. Students build their observational skills through drawing, asking questions, noticing, and learning what living things need. Caring for class pets, filling bird feeders, and tending to gardens help them develop empathy, responsibility, and a sense of connection to the ecosystem around them. Children track temperature, rain, and weather patterns to understand Earth’s systems and cycles. They collect and share data, observe changes over time, and make predictions based on the evidence they gather.

At Capitol Hill Day School, social emotional and academic growth are woven together, each supporting the other. Our Early Childhood educators work intentionally with students to support their friendships and play, build conflict resolution skills,  establish routines, address feelings, and more. Children learn to recognize, name, and manage their emotions throughout the school day while also practicing how to make and keep friends through cooperative play. They are guided in resolving conflicts with peers using words and actions as they develop important life skills, like taking care of themselves, their belongings, and their environment. Through daily routines and community-building experiences, students contribute to a safe, joyful, and engaging learning environment.

In Early Childhood, students begin to understand themselves and the world around them through exploration of traditions, identity, and community. Through traditions, children learn about their own cultures and those of others, fostering respect and appreciation for different people. They are supported in developing a strong sense of identity and belonging, learning to be proud of who they are, recognize unfairness, and stand up for others. As the year progresses, children expand their understanding of community, exploring how neighborhoods work and what it means to be a community helper.

Early Childhood Spanish instruction mirrors many of the topics explored in the classroom. Students learn about seasons, the natural world, and the animals that inhabit it, as well as family, food, and traditions. Students build vocabulary for colors, shapes, numbers, and body parts. Lessons often incorporate music, movement, and play, making learning a new language engaging, fun, and exciting.