PPNS Curriculum
High-quality early childhood education is a balance between developing
readiness skills for kindergarten and fostering a child’s wonder with the world, creativity, problem-solving skills, and relationships with other human beings. Research continues to show that children need to be involved in play, and all the opportunities play brings, to become not only interested and engaged students, but people who can adapt and solve problems in our increasingly complex world.
Although the first years in elementary school involve learning to read and write, learning mathematical operations, and following directions, later schooling will involve taking what a student knows and using problem-solving, discovery, and creative skills to come up with something new. Problem solving during play in the earliest years provides a foundation for meeting challenges in later years.
Our teachers are versed in the New Jersey Department of Education Preschool Teaching and Learning Standards that were last updated in 2014. We plan our lessons to incorporate the standards and learning outcomes. Most of these are based on play and discovery-based learning, which are both central to the educational experience at PPNS. If you are interested in reading the standards, you can access them at the State of NJ Department for Education –
NJ Birth to Three Early Learning Standards
NJ Preschool Teaching and Learning Standards
We break the curriculum into specific age groups as listed below. Click on each link to view the specific goals and objectives for each age group,