3 Year Old Program | The Sunshine Palace

Our 3 year old program:
We work with the children to reach these goals

FINE MOTOR

To develop and strengthen eye-hand coordination
To introduce scissors skills
To be able to manipulate a variety of writing tools and paint
To be able to assemble simple puzzles
To be able to manipulate clay; finger paints
To be able to copy simple shapes, such as a cross or circle
To be able to stack blocks up to nine high

GROSS MOTOR

To be able to throw a ball in general direction desired
To be able to kick a large ball in general direction desired
To be able to catch a large ball from 3 feet
To be able to pedal a tricycle in a straight line

LITERACY

To be exposed to a variety of literature
To model written language through journalizing
To develop comprehension skills
To be exposed to rhyming words

MATH

To recognize shapes (square, circle, triangle)
To develop sorting and matching skills
To be able to count to 10

SCIENCE

To gain an understanding of cause and effect
To have numerous hands-on opportunities

ART

To recognize colors
To expose children to a variety of media
To encourage creativity through a variety of open-ended art activities
To experience cause and effect through various art activities

MUSIC

To expose children to different styles of music
To foster listening skills and promote sound awareness
To encourage children to feel free and interact with music through singing and physical movement
To encourage enjoyment of and creativity through music

Language and Thinking Development

Matches pictures to objects
Learns by doing and through the senses
Understand concepts of “now,” “soon,” and “later”
Begins to recognize cause-and-effect relationships

Social and Emotional Development

Follows simple directions; enjoys helping with household tasks
Begins to recognize own limits — asks for help
Able to make choices between two things
Begins to notice other people’s moods and feelings

Your child is no longer a toddler, your 3-year-old takes in knowledge about himself/herself and the world around them.
Transitions are difficult at this age. We provide warning of changes so your child has time to shift gears.
Rituals are important. Household routines and schedules give your 3-year-old a sense of security.
We point out colors and numbers in the course of everyday conversation: “You’re wearing your blue shirt” or “We made six cupcakes.”
We encourage independent activity to build self-reliance.
We provide lots of sensory experiences for learning and developing coordination — sand, mud, finger paints, puzzles.

Children want to learn many new and exciting things. When your child has reached the goals for the 3 and 4 year old program I focus on the rest of these goals:

LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT (Oral to Written Language)

To have developed the concept of a story (by creating stories, listening to, retelling in sequence and applying information from stories to daily living)
To be able to follow one, two and three step directions
To be able to listen and retell directions and/or basic concepts taught
To speak in correct, meaningful sentences
To be able to tell a story both orally and through drawing pictures

FINE MOTOR

To be able to grasp correctly
To be able to cut on lines with scissors
To be able to tie, zipper, button, snap
To recognize and write upper and lower case letters correctly on lined paper

READING

To be able to identify letter names and corresponding sounds both in an out of alphabetical order
To be able to identify initial and final consonants in words
To recognize rhyming words
To be able to recognize similarities and differences between objects or groups of objects
To be able to recognize topics and details in stories
To be able to identify sequential relationships
To be able to follow across a page in a left/right progression

MATHEMATICS

To be able to write the numbers 0-12
To be able to count sets of objects through 10, using one to one correspondence
To be able to order objects (first, second, Third, fourth and fifth)
To be able to recognize and be able to use location concept words (over, under, above, next to, larger, smaller, between, zero, forward, every, separate, half, back, nearest, farthest)
To be able to classify objects in sets
To be able to solve problems using pictures and patterns