Early Childhood
Welcome to our early childhood center, or “Little Mazel” - a nurturing, engaging space where young children build confidence, curiosity, and a love for learning from day one.
Maria Montessori
We believe that even the youngest children have an infinite potential to absorb knowledge. Each day is filled with opportunities to learn new skills, concepts, and ideas, building on children’s natural curiosity and thirst for learning.
Through a dynamic and developmentally appropriate curriculum, we create an atmosphere that invites children to observe, to try new things, to actively participate – helping them develop positive self-image, social skills, and independence.
Our early childhood preschool program has classes for the following age groups:
For children ages 2-3
(must be turning 2 by October to join)
For children ages 3-4
(must be turning 3 by November to join)
For children ages 4-5
(must be turning 4 by November to join)
Our faculty
Our teachers are highly trained early childhood educators who bring both expertise and warmth to the classroom. Attuned to each child’s unique needs, they create a supportive and nurturing environment where every student feels valued. To ensure all children feel understood, each classroom is staffed with both English- and Russian-speaking teachers.
Our facilities
Our early childhood learning spaces are thoughtfully designed with intention and care. Cozy, calming, and homey, they foster a sense of comfort and belonging. With a focus on beauty, order, and child-friendliness, each space encourages hands-on discovery and growth. Inspiring and thought-provoking, our classrooms spark curiosity and exploration. Equipped with high-quality educational toys and materials, they support creativity and learning. Beyond the classroom, children enjoy a spacious indoor playroom, a dedicated gym, and an outdoor yard with a small garden – ideal for play, bike riding, and fresh air.
Loris Malaguzzi
At Mazel Day Schools’ Preschool Division, our curriculum aims to expose children to a wide range of new experiences that will give them tools to develop language, creativity, and independent thinking skills. In general, our curriculum is divided into two areas:
The underlying principles that guide the manner in which these two areas are taught in the classroom are that young children learn best through:
Our fully-developed program includes arts and crafts, field trips, sensory development activities, exercise, baking, block play, imaginative play, and lots of fun, hands-on activities. Our academic program teaches early math concepts, reading and literacy skills, as well as important problem-solving and thinking skills. Since we believe that all children develop at an individual pace, we incorporate individualized lessons with teachers working one-on-one or in small groups, as we carefully monitor every child’s progress. Our teachers are highly trained and experienced professionals in early childhood education. Warm and caring, they are attentive to each child’s needs, so that all the children in the classroom feel special and loved. To accommodate Russian-speaking children, each classroom is staffed with both English and Russian-speaking teachers.
Preschool lays the foundation for the development of early childhood skills so that children enter elementary school well-prepared. Our program focuses on developing children’s…
ASSESSMENT: Each child’s development in all areas of learning (motor, language, cognitive, mathematics, literacy, etc.) is carefully observed and documented. Throughout the year, informal assessments are performed on the children so that teachers can see where children’s strengths and weaknesses are, as we carefully monitor every child’s progress. These assessments and general observations are discussed with the Educational Director and individualized learning goals are planned for each term.
DEVELOPMENTALLY APPROPRIATE SPECTRUM: Teachers are well versed with the spectrum of developmentally appropriate benchmarks for each age group so that goals for each class and child are selected based on age-appropriate milestones.
MONTHLY GOALS: Long-term goals of age-appropriate skills are broken down so that each month, teachers focus on different skills, working with the children in both group and one-on-one settings. Specific goals are also set for each individual child, based on the outcome of their assessment.
GROUP LEARNING: Designated times for group learning of mathematics and literacy skills are built into the class schedule. Skills are taught through modeling, games/activities, and constant review.
ONE-ON-ONE/SMALL GROUP LEARNING: Throughout the week, children spend short periods with their teacher working to develop individual skill levels.
At Mazel Day School, we strive to identify the best possible educational practices for our students. Some examples of evidence-based curricula used in our preschool division are Touch Math and Handwriting Without Tears.
The Touch Math Program is a multi-sensory math curriculum that teaches numeral recognition. Designed by educational specialists, it provides young children with a concrete way to learn about numbers. Placing counting points on numbers helps them understand how a symbol represents a quantity, making the critical transition from concrete to symbolic learning. It also reinforces one-to-one correspondence, which is a foundational kindergarten readiness skill.
The Handwriting Without Tears Curriculum for Nursery and Pre-K children was developed by occupational therapists who created a play-based program based on children’s development and readiness. HWT offers a full pre-writing and phonics program that builds critical early math and literacy skills. Children who were taught with the HWT curriculum consistently demonstrated mastery of key skills at the end of the Pre-K year.
MONTHLY THEMES: Throughout the year, different themes relating to the children’s world are explored as a group. This creates a setting for new learning experiences, emergent language, and discovery. Teachers use every modality available to engage the children’s learning and exploration.
EMERGENT CURRICULUM: Teachers work to facilitate a learning process that will emerge from the children’s interests. For example, the teacher may bring an object of interest into the classroom that will spark the children’s attention. This naturally generates the children’s process of asking questions, thinking about what is before them, and formulating ideas about what they see and experience.
BIG IDEAS: For each thematic unit, teachers select a “Big Idea” – or a life message – that relates to the children’s social and emotional development. This “Big Idea” provides focus for the unit’s exploration and enables the children to bring the learning into their everyday lives.
HANDS-ON EXPERIENCES: In addition, themes are explored through any of the following experiences: doing, creating, or building something; sensory activities that involve tasting, touching, and smelling; field trips; guest visitors; baking, cooking, and food activities. These experiences are supported by group discussions, reading theme-related books, music, songss, and movement.
There are 5 main thematic units that the children explore over the year:
Walk into any of our classrooms and you will see that Centers are another important aspect of the learning experience at Mazel. Learning Centers are designated areas in the classroom where children are able to engage in different types of learning experiences. Classroom centers include (depending on the age of the children):
Art Center: Here are the raw materials for creativity – colored paper, crayons, markers, tape, paste, safe scissors – set out on shelves and tables. One child will be tracing the outlines of leaves; another is cutting out shapes and pasting them in patterns on colored paper. A third will paint at an easel, and a fourth may make a hippopotamus out of clay. Art projects may be done either independently or simultaneously as a class activity. At the Art Center, children are developing creativity, as well as small muscle control and hand/eye coordination.
Block Center: At the Block Center, two children might be working together to build “the highest tower in the whole world.” Another child is constructing a bridge and her friend is loading little people into cars for a journey over the girl’s bridge and down the road he has just completed. Wooden blocks of different sizes and shapes are arranged on shelves along with small cars and an assortment of “little people” to encourage children to build replicas of their world, or creations of their imaginations as they practice symbolic representation.
At the Block Center, children are developing an understanding of the relationships between size & shape, and the basic math concepts of geometry and numbers.
Imaginative Play Center: Children experiment with different roles as they explore the familiar and the unknown through pretend play. This area is filled with props & dress-up clothes to encourage imagination. One day it might be a kitchen with a play stove, sink, and dishes; the next day it might be a post office, restaurant, or airplane. At the Imaginative Play Center, children learn to work with other children, to share and to make compromises (for example: Who gets to be the mother, the father, the baby?). They practice verbal skills and develop an understanding of symbolic representation that leads to development of reading and writing skills.
Math and Puzzle Center: One child is carefully stringing beads into colorful patterns, a second is building a complex structure out of Legos, and a third is bent over a puzzle, deep in concentration. In this area, shelves are filled with puzzles, pegboards, beads, and other small construction toys. At the Math and Puzzle Center, children develop fine motor skills by using their fingers and hands in creative ways. They learn hand/eye coordination and practice problem-solving skills. They also explore important pre-math skills laying the foundation for school-age learning.
Literacy Center: Here, children explore the world of books and feel safe and secure as they are introduced to reading. Brightly illustrated children’s books are displayed on low shelves. In front of them, children are curled up on a rug with the books they have selected. They lounge against large, comfortable, multi-colored cushions as a teacher helps them sound out words. Children listen to stories, following the pictures in their books. Others gesture intently as a teacher reads a favorite story. Sometimes there are chairs and small tables with paper and crayons and markers for children to practice drawing and writing.
Discovery Table: The teacher displays real-life objects, photos, and more related to thematic learning units. Children explore, touch, interact with, and talk about what they see and experience. At the Discovery Table, children expand their learning by exploring objects related to what they are learning about. This provides additional opportunities for vocabulary building, language development, and making connections in learning.
Sensory Table: One child is experimenting at the water table to find out what floats and what sinks. Another is pouring sand through a funnel into containers of different sizes. Water and sand tables equipped with boats, cups, funnels, and sieves encourage children to explore mediums like water and sand, to understand the physical world, and to develop concepts underlying math and physics. At the Sensory Table, children find important sensory stimulation, while they experiment with cause-and-effect relationships.
Teachers regularly integrate various JEWISH VALUES throughout the curriculum. These include, among many others:
Albert Einstein
Our three daily meals include breakfast, lunch, and snack, serving well-balanced, hot, Kosher foods that are both nutritional and child-friendly.
Walk our sunlit hallways, meet our passionate teachers, and see the joy of learning in action. Schedule a tour to discover how your child can flourish at Mazel Day School.