Pre-Kindergarten
Joyful beginnings to a lifetime of learning.
Building curious, capable and caring learners from the very beginning.
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Purposeful Play
Open-ended play gives children opportunities to solve problems, create, negotiate, imagine and test their ideas while developing skills across every area of learning.
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Inquiry & Discovery
Children are encouraged to ask questions, notice patterns, experiment and follow their curiosity as they begin seeing themselves as capable thinkers.
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Relationships & Belonging
A caring classroom community gives children the security to take risks, express themselves, navigate friendships and understand their place within a group.
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Growing Independence
Children practice making choices, caring for materials, communicating needs and taking increasing responsibility for themselves and their learning.
Learning With Intention
Built for how young children learn.
Pre-Kindergarten classrooms are joyful and active, but nothing about them is accidental. Teachers intentionally create environments where children can investigate ideas, build relationships and develop increasing independence.
Stanley's Pre-Kindergarten program is designed around how young children naturally make sense of the world: through play, relationships, movement, conversation, exploration and discovery. Teachers create rich experiences that invite children to wonder, experiment and make meaningful choices.
See what that looks like in motion.
Strong Foundations
Academics woven into the day.
Children begin developing essential literacy, mathematical and inquiry skills through hands-on experiences that are meaningful, playful and developmentally appropriate.
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Early Literacy
Stories, conversation, rhyming, drawing, dictation and playful work with letters and sounds help children develop phonemic awareness, vocabulary, storytelling skills and an understanding that spoken language can become written language.
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Mathematical Thinking
Children count, compare, sort, measure, build, recognize patterns and explore shapes and quantities. Early mathematical ideas emerge naturally through games, routines, construction and classroom investigations.
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Science & Discovery
Children investigate living things, weather, seasons, light, color and the natural world. They learn to observe closely, make predictions, experiment and talk about what they notice.
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Identity & Community
Social studies begins with the child. Children explore identity, families, friendships, classroom community and the world around them while learning that every person contributes to a larger community.
A Cornerstone of Early Learning
Choice Time
Choice Time is at the heart of the Pre-Kindergarten experience. Children move among thoughtfully designed classroom spaces, choosing materials, following interests and developing ideas through sustained play.
In one morning, a child might become an architect building an elaborate block structure, a storyteller creating a pretend world with friends, a scientist investigating natural materials and an artist experimenting with color.
Teachers observe, listen, ask questions and extend children's thinking, helping play grow into increasingly sophisticated learning.
Meet the Pre-Kindergarten Team
Experienced educators who know young children deeply.
Pre-Kindergarten teachers bring deep knowledge of child development, thoughtful observation and a genuine understanding of how young children learn best.
Division Leadership
Simone Brackett
Head of Pre-Kindergarten Through 2
Simone is an alumna of Stanley, as well as a graduate of the Stanley Teacher Prep Program. She is passionate about education and meeting the needs of a diverse set of learners.
Ladybirds
Susannah Marais
Pre-Kindergarten Teacher
Haylee Sibley
Pre-Kindergarten Teacher
Daffodils
Ingrid Shea
Pre-Kindergarten Teacher
Claudia Raubolt
Pre-Kindergarten Teacher
See Stanley in action
Come see joyful learning in motion.
Visit a Pre-K classroom and experience the curiosity, connection and purposeful learning that shape each day.