Preschool Program
I write my own preschool curriculum based on the Creative Curriculum. You can find more information on CC by visiting their web site, http://www.teachingstrategies.com. I also recommend reading the Creative Curriculum for Early Childhood. It offers a very complete explanation of CC. CC is an environmentally-based curriculum. This means that we have learning centers in my preschool/child care. We have a house corner, block corner, water table, art table, math and manipulatives area, science area, etc.. When I choose my theme for the week, I try to include something in each center that's related to the theme. In addition, we do regular group activities like art or craft projects, playing games, dramatic play activities, and so on. I get the ideas for our activities from many sources including the huge collection of curriculum books I have, the internet, e-mail lists, and other providers.
We have daily group activities as well as the activities in each of our learning centers that the children can choose to do on their own. We do a different theme weekly. Planning my own preschool curriculum is a time-consuming task, but one I thoroughly enjoy.