02/26/2024
In small group today, the Adventurers appreciated our environment as a teacher. They observed the new blooms on a tree near our playground then drew their unique interpretations.
Teacher: “how do you think the flowers grew?”
Student J: “they formed. From sun and nutrients!”
Student JB: “I’m going to cut out the flower I drew and give it to my mom. She can even put it in her hair!”
02/15/2024
During the Adventurer’s geology unit, the children became fascinated with the concept that tectonic plates would shift and collide to make mountains. We pushed the dirt to represent plates shifting and made our own volcanoes.
02/01/2024
We had the best time meeting critters from the South Carolina Aquarium yesterday! Ambassadors brought a diamondback terrapin, a painted turtle, tortoise, and a rat snack to meet our students. We read an interactive story about the icky sticky frog and what it takes to have a happy habitat. We learned about conservation and tending to our environment.
These hands on experiences are truly invaluable to our little learners!
01/23/2024
The Adventurers class is diving into the Earth’s crust with their new found interest in geology! Here they are forming their own “rocks” by using crayon shavings, applying pressure and heat, then pouring the liquid wax into ice water. Every day is a new adventure with our fabulous teachers!
10/24/2023
✨ Embracing Joy and Curiosity at Preschool of the Arts! ✨
At Preschool of the Arts, every day is an adventure filled with giggles, wonder, and endless curiosity!
Our students are like sponges, soaking up the beauty and excitement of the world around them.
Our colorful classrooms are bursting with creativity, where every brushstroke, every note, and every dance move is an expression of pure joy!
Our nurturing environment is where young minds are encouraged to ask "Why?" and "How?" as they embark on their unique learning journey.
We believe in fostering a love of learning that lasts a lifetime.
Join us in celebrating the magic of childhood, where joy and curiosity go hand in hand! 🤗✨
10/03/2023
Our students have been hard at work building and designing our sukkah in preparation for Sukkot.
05/12/2023
From muffins to mud kitchen and spring garden blooms 💐
In celebration of Mother’s Day we gathered to graze, plant and paint. It is always a treat to host a beautiful event, especially when it is in honor of our mothers who are truly the glue holding us all together ❤️ thank you for sharing this time with us, making memories to last a lifetime. You are incredible and so loved!
Happy Mother’s Day 🎉
04/21/2023
Happy from our garden to yours! 🌱🌎🍓
04/03/2023
In celebration of Passover all POTA children reenacted a spirited splitting of the sea. This tradition is near and dear to the heart of the school. Together we are filled with gratitude and reminded that…
"To be free is not merely to cast off one's chains but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others." Nelson Mandela
We hope everyone’s holiday is filled with immeasurable joy, peace and love. Happy Pesach!
03/24/2023
Over the last few weeks the adventurers have leaned into storytelling as an invitation towards empathy and connection. This classroom inquiry, “words are powerful” quickly sparked an empowering movement among our small but mighty crew. We began to wonder, what might our collective mission be? With some help from our outdoor classroom, beloved critters and a few of our favorite books, Follow the Moon Home and Earth! My First 4.54 Billion Years, we became inspired to embark on a poster campaign. It is our hope that these messages will reach far beyond our classroom walls and into the community.
❤️🌏
Throughout this project we have witnessed the children’s desire to find meaning in words and practice handwriting rise in connection to their interests. This experience is just one example of the ways we incorporate authentic opportunities for kindergarten readiness in our Reggio inspired classroom.
03/03/2023
As a hands on extension of their recent inquiry the explorers embarked on a wool and soap project. They were thrilled! Through creativity and play the children were immersed in important concepts such as sequencing, position words, and making useful items from raw materials. This experience showed that milk and wool can be transformed to make beautiful and useful items for our homes and our classroom.
The children were filled with pride & joy when the time came to gift these handmade treasures to their families during our most recent preschool Shabbat!
02/23/2023
At the beginning of February we celebrated one of our favorite holidays, Tu BiShvat! Or as the children lovingly say, “the birthday of our trees.” We have since been inspired to step into the great responsibility of acting as Earth protectors and taking care of the world around us. So what might this look like? Here are some ideas our friends would like to share…
“Picking up trash!”
“Clear the ocean so animals don’t get sick”
“Make signs!”
“Feed all the animals”
“We should water the plants!”
We are grateful for all of the efforts our local community members take to care for our local environment! 🌈🍃🦋🌞🌲
01/12/2023
The explorers are continuing their dive into a storytelling inquiry and interest in The Three Billy Goats Gruff 📖 This week friends greeted a few local farm visitors on the playground! They immediately began noticing and making connections, “they has a tail!” “it’s soft like a pillow.” “I feed a billy goat and he takes it from my hand!” This special experience was a beautiful opportunity for our youngest friends to extend meaning from written word to personal, hands on experience.
10/07/2022
The Jewish High Holidays (Rosh Hashanah & Yom Kippur) inspired a wonderful opportunity to discuss and practice character traits such as: kindness, thoughtfulness, helpfulness, respect, caring, and love.
Together, we symbolically cleansed ourselves of any wrongdoings or mistakes, to make room for more positive choices.
In addition, we practiced using manners and kind words when expressing ourselves to others.
The color white represents purity, freshness, a new start.
The soft textures represent the gentleness that we use with other people.
08/22/2022
Welcome back families! We are so excited to see what this school year has in store for us. 🙂
05/06/2022
Thank you to all our POTA Moms for joining us for the Muffins with Mom event this week and sharing your wonderful children with us! We hope everyone has a relaxing Mother's Day weekend!
04/01/2022
This week at POTA, the Adventurer’s studied the work of Lois Ehlert, a well-known illustrator of children’s books, and learned new art techniques while creating their own collages. After reading several stories containing Ehlert’s illustrations, the children noticed her art used many smaller pieces or shapes to create bigger pictures. With Elhert as inspiration, the children worked both collaboratively and independently as they arranged different shapes, natural materials, or loose parts to create their own collages.
12/07/2021
We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday celebrating Chanukah. At POTA, the children enjoyed the story of the miracle of light, experimenting with the properties of oil and light, menorah making, playing dreidel, doughnut decorating, singing and dancing, and an extra special gelt drop from the Mount Pleasant fire department! Chag Sameach!
11/22/2021
Many of the projects and art experiences we offer at POTA are collaborative in nature. They provide chances for the children to interact with both the creative materials and each other in different ways, resulting in beautiful and meaningful joint work. With collaborative art, kids get to:
*negotiate their space with others
*notice others’ contributions
*work together to add more or decide when it is finished
*share a joint excitement when their work is displayed
*reflect on their contribution through displayed documentation
*develop visual discrimination skills
*practice patience
*exhibit sensory awareness
*move in and out of the experience
*offer unique perspective
11/17/2021
Throughout the school year’s learning journey, POTA teachers practice an emergent curriculum based on the children’s interests. Tapping into children’s innate sense of awe and wonder is critical. When children become excited about something, their sense of wonder leads to their own authentic pursuit for knowledge about that subject.
For the past several weeks the children in the Adventurer’s class have been fascinated with outer space! Based on this interest, the children completed an exciting learning adventure as they traveled through the solar system. Along the way they gathered and identified numerous specimens, identified the differences between living and nonliving things, carefully designed a rocket ship (complete with a control panel of patterns and numbers), studied what makes life on planet Earth possible, trained to be astronauts, and traveled through the entire solar system. They completed all of this while learning about the planets along the way! We are so proud of the Adventurers and look forward to seeing where this school year takes us next!
09/27/2021
Last week the children at POTA worked in a variety of mediums to create decorations for our sukkah. A sukkah is a symbolic temporary shelter that during Sukkot, people spend their time eating in while giving thanks for the shelter provided to the Israelites in the desert long ago. The walls of the children’s sukkah became an amazing collaborative art gallery that both our Adventurers and Explorers classes painted, wove, and created.
09/24/2021
Students at POTA have been working on their self-portraits. Self-portraits enable the artist to express various aspects of their identity beyond the surface of their physical appearance. Not only are the self-portraits a fun exercise but they can be quite revealing. The portrait can show the development of a child’s fine motor, observation, and focusing skills. Additionally, it gives insight into the child’s concept of self allowing an adult to see the world through the child’s own eyes.
06/04/2021
Congratulations to all of our graduates! We will miss you dearly. Please visit often!
05/10/2021
“Learning and teaching should not stand on opposite banks and just watch the river flow by; instead, they should embark together on a journey down the water. Through an active, reciprocal exchange, teaching can strengthen learning and how to learn." Loris Malaguzzi
We are constantly learning, creating and experimenting right alongside these precious children. Thankful for the opportunity to experience the world as they do.
04/28/2021
Our little school has been welcoming new life! Between our flourishing garden, the chicken eggs that are on the brink of hatching, and our beautiful butterfly that just this morning emerged from its chrysalis, there is so much to celebrate!
04/12/2021
We hope you are enjoying this beautiful Springtime weather as much as we are! Whether we are practicing yoga, playing instruments, or experimenting with the magnet wall, there is no shortage of outdoor activities to keep our minds and bodies busy!
03/31/2021
Happy Passover! Last week at POTA, the Explorers and the Adventurers learned all about the Exodus from Egypt. We ended the week with a celebration where we danced and paraded through the parted Red Sea!