Where a Love of Learning Begins

Our philosophy is simple: Meet children where they are, help them get to where they need to go and provide children with lots of individualized guidance and support along the way. We strive to make each child’s experience interesting and meaningful. It is our aim to provide a rich and developmentally appropriate experience that will foster a lifelong love of books and learning. Ultimately, it is our mission to prepare each child well for the years ahead.

Nurturing Curious Minds

Children’s brains develop rapidly in the first five years of life. The “wiring” that occurs at this time impacts individuals the rest of their lives, according to research (Google brain development and early learning for countless articles on this topic). Thus, we believe in using our students’ time wisely.

We follow a balanced approach when teaching literacy to our youngest children. Teachers model good reading practices and immerse children in literacy-related activities while in circle time, through reading aloud and teaching of mini-lessons. We use books, puppets, games, role-playing, toys, signs and anything with pictures or words on them to help in this endeavor. Learn more about our Infant, Toddler and 2-Year Old programs.

Our Pre-School and Pre-Kindergarten Curriculum

With our older children, we use an award-winning literacy curriculum that results in skill building in a developmentally appropriate way through play, music, and a range of activities and experiences.

We help children develop literacy skills through play and explicit instruction and using the right tools and strategies.

Our teachers focus on the following:

  • The alphabet, naming letters and recognizing letters orally and in print

  • Concepts about print, parts of a book, title, author and illustrator, correct positioning, turning pages, and reading from left to right and top to bottom

  • Phonological awareness, which is the ability to hear and manipulate parts of spoken language making sense of sounds and words

  • Comprehension or meaning making

  • Expressive language where children share their feelings, thoughts and observations, social interactions and retellings of and reactions to stories

  • Age appropriate word recognition

  • Beginning writing using dictation, invented spelling and words and story making

In mathematics, children build number sense using manipulatives, music and rhymes to teach counting, comparisons, spatial awareness, patterning, sequencing, matching, sorting and problem solving.

We teach social studies and science through books and thematic units as well as hands-on learning experiences. We have turned a portion of our rear yard into a nature center for exploration and growing plants.

Dance, Spanish, Sign Language and Music

We offer Music, Spanish, Dance and Sign Language specials to enrich the curriculum. Infants participate in Music and Spanish. Walkers and older, roughly ages 1 ½ and up, participate in Spanish, Dance, Sign Language and Music once per week.

Our mission at Evelyn Street Day School is to meet children where they are and help them reach their highest potential in a child-centered, fun and engaging manner. It is our aim to provide a rich and developmentally appropriate experience that will foster a lifelong love of books and learning.