Childhood Expressions Fine Arts Pre-School

For children born prior to April 2021

9:15am-11:30am Tuesdays and Thursdays

$328 + HST per month ($41/class)

Includes a healthy snack

Childhood Expressions ™ Fine Arts Program was developed by Jane Davis-Munro and Lynda Johnson and has been a trusted neighbourhood program for the past 35 years. The program is rooted in their joint expertise on the teaching of dance and art to children. This program has been carefully crafted and continues to be developed and updated since its inception in 1986.

Childhood Expressions ™ Fine Arts Curriculum provides a positive learning environment for young children to explore, create, express and develop their inborn creative spirit, physically, visually and musically. Research has proven that by introducing dance, music, visual arts, drama/storytelling and literature in the early years exercises both hemispheres of the brain and opens the doors for successful future learning.

Childhood Expressions ™ fine arts based program will lay down the stepping stones for your child to transition into Kindergarten. As registered dance educators, artists and early childhood educators our program follows principles from the Royal Academy of Dance Preschool syllabus, research based child development practices and takes into consideration guidelines from the Ontario Ministry of Education Kindergarten Program in preparing your child for future learning.

Details

Age
This program is for children 2.5-5 years olds. Children need to be 30 months by start date to be successful in this program. 

Days & Times
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:15-11:30 am. The length of each class and the rhythm of the morning will be determined on the theme of the day and the needs of the children. Specific classes in music & movement, exploring art, and dramatic play classes are taught each morning.

Music & Movement
The theme of the class will be explored using percussion instruments, varieties of sounds, music and dance. The children will be encouraged to explore their own spontaneous movements, improvisations, and imagination to help them find the joy and magic of movement. This will allow for communication through expression, controlled motion, movement and stillness while focusing on patterning and perceptual awareness. Development of basic locomotor skills, body awareness and control increases awareness of time, energy, spatial concepts, shape and form. The children continue to explore related themes in the Exploring Art portion of the program.

Exploring Art
This class allows the young child to ‘do art’ to discover, explore and experiment. In this process they will discover many things including colour, shape, form and texture while experiencing joy, patience, creativity and the mystery of manipulating various materials while engaging their eye and inner vision. For this reason the ‘process’ is more valuable to them then the ‘product’ and is most beneficial at this stage of development. This Visual Art class will allow them to explore and discover their world and through our program will also offer preliminary concepts introducing science, nature and math skills through counting, shapes, measurement and patterning.

Dramatic Play
The theme of the day’s classes will be explored through role playing, social interactions and cooperation as we integrate books, felt board stories, puppets, fingerplays, rhymes and dramatic play into each lesson, building language, vocabulary and sequencing.
The children are encouraged to stimulate ideas, reasoning, recall and social cognition. Pre-literacy writing and drawing occurs through the stories the children connect to their work and through the conversations and idea sharing that helps to boost the children’s confidence in expressing themselves through language. This allows us to explore and empathize with various emotions as we listen, interpret and formulate our ideas and conclusions.

What sets us apart

Small class size with a cap of 10 students

High adult to child ratio (1:5)

Curriculum based on theories of child development & learning through the arts

Program is focused on increasing each child's cognitive, physical and emotional development

Our curriculum has been developed over the past 35 years and continues to be enhanced based on new research into the development of the young child

Fully equipped dance studios, with proper sprung floors to prevent injuries, with non-slip dance flooring.

All the art supplies a child needs to create and explore a variety of fine art mediums

Creative Drama Studio provides a space for role playing through dress up, creating stories with puppets and felt boards.

Register

Our pre-school program runs from January 2023 to June 2023. We will follow all TDSB school holidays.

Childhood Expressions is not a Day Care but a Specialty Creative Arts Program to help prepare the tiny generation for junior kindergarten.

Lesson plans that integrate all the Fine Arts for a complete sensory learning experience.