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Here at Joyful Noise Community Preschool we believe that school and learning should be safe, accessible and inclusive for everyone. At Joyful Noise Community School we believe in:

The right to an inclusive education

Developing a multicultural education and curriculum

Celebrating each child for their individuality and uniqueness

The power of play, music and art in a child's education

Building a sense of community through parent and caregiver involvement

Honoring and respecting differences

Using current research to guide our curriculum and interactions with students and the community

Integrating technology to research new topics and further the children's play and learning

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Joyful Noise Community Preschool follows a play based curriculum that allows our students to guide their own learning. Through free play, our students will develop social emotional, fine motor, gross motor, and cognitive skills.

From Hanline (2010), "The importance of play on a young child's development cannot be understated. Play gives children opportunities to understand the world, interact with others, express and control emotions, develop symbolic capabilities, attempt novel or challenging tasks, solve problems, and practice skills."

Teachers in the classroom will act as facilitators, mediators and guides for the children's play. They will work to create lessons around the children's interests and use these interests to develop skills in the students that will prepare them for kindergarten. Our curriculum will also ensure that each student receives a multicultural education through community based partnerships and caregiver involvement in our school. We will also use these partnerships and involvement to make sure each child is celebrated for their uniqueness and what they bring to our classroom.

We will also integrate the use of technology in our curriculum to prepare our young learners for elementary school where technology will be integrated throughout their academic careers.

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Here at Joyful Noise Community Preschool, we strive to make our classroom and curriculum accessible and inclusive for all learners, teachers and caregivers. To accommodate those with physical limitations, we have added a ramp to our school entrance, wheelchair accessible tables, and handicap bathrooms. If our classroom is not accessible for those with physical limitations, we will always make changes to ensure our building is accessible for all. Our curriculum also ensures that all learning styles are met through an array of teaching strategies. Our teachers are always observing student progress and learning and if a teacher notices a student needing extra support, we will make sure this is brought to their caregivers attention. Each of our classrooms has teachers who are well versed in guiding children's behavior through the use of positive reinforcement and setting clear expectations for the children. We will work as a team to ensure your child receives an accessible and inclusive education at our school!

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While Joyful Noise Community Preschool is a play-based school, we understand the importance of technology and digital literacy, even for our youngest learners. In our preschool classrooms, we will use technology to further our exploration of topics our student's are interested in. As example, if we are exploring different types of animals, we may use the iPad to hear the noises each animal makes and explore their habitat. We will also integrate the use of First 8 Studio's new tool called Preschool Discovery Box, which is a tool that can chart data and provide further questions for the children to explore. Through the use of this technology, we can help guide our student's play and learning by considering new ways of thinking and exploring technology.

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To ensure our students receive a multicultural education, we strongly encourage caregiver and community involvement in our school. Throughout the school year we provide multiple opportunities for caregiver involvement through take home project's and inviting caregivers into our classroom to read a book at circle time. One of our biggest take home projects is our Family Heritage project where we ask each student to make a presentation (poster board, drawing, video, etc.) of their family heritage and history to present to the class. Through this project we hope to bring our students cultures into our classroom and celebrate each child's culture and heritage.

During the school year we also invite members of our community to come into our classroom and teach the children about their profession or culture. Some examples of community members we have invited in the past include firemen, postal workers, librarians, and culturally diverse community members.

It is important to our student's education and development that we involve the community and caregivers in their learning and make sure our community plays an active role in the classroom.

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Through our curriculum, we work hard to ensure we are setting students up to become upstanding members of their community who are able to contribute to their community emotionally, physically and intellectually. To ensure each child has an equal opportunity to attend our school, we provide financial aid to community members who need assistance attending our school. Through this need based financial aid program, we are reaching members of our community who would not be able to send their child/children to our school.

Throughout the school year, caregivers and students are provided with multiple opportunities to volunteer in the community. Some of our families in the past have volunteered to clean up trash, deliver meals to the elderly, and help at the local food bank. Through these acts of volunteering, our students can gain a sense of community and belonging while also giving back to their community. In addition to these volunteer opportunities, our students will visit the local library once a week along with students from the elementary school to read together. Each student will be paired with an older student who will read with their reading buddy. This program will bring these young members of the community together to further develop their social emotional skills and introduce them to their local librarians, who are often pillars of the community.

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Through this assignment I gained a lot of insight into what I truly find most important in preschool education. I have worked and observed at many preschools that seemed to lose sight of the true joy of childhood, play! Many of these schools, especially the one I worked at, had strict schedules and curriculum that had to be followed to a tee to prepare students for kindergarten. I always agreed that children should follow a schedule but never saw the point in forcing children to learn about topics they had little interest in and ultimately would not be necessary for kindergarten preparation. It put a lot of stress on the teachers too because we would have to base our curriculum around one topic for two weeks. We were always left saying "I wish we had more time to teach and expand on this topic" or "how on Earth am I going to teach this simple topic for two weeks?". At this school I also felt my students were not receiving a multicultural education which is so important to our young learners, "teaching diversity exposes students to various cultural and social groups, preparing students to become better citizens in their communities" (Drexel University, 2023). In my ideal school all students would be offered the opportunity to engage with their community and become members of their community through volunteering and parent/caregiver involvement. These opportunities and family projects would also provide all students with a multicultural education and prepare them for real life scenarios. I really enjoyed this assignment as well because it helped me realize what type of education is important for my own to children to have and taught me what I need to look for in a school for my children.

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Bay Atlantic University. (2021). 8 Types of Learning Styles | The Definitive Guide. Bay Atlantic University. https://bau.edu/blog/types-of-learning-styles/

Drexel University School of Education. (2023). THE IMPORTANCE OF DIVERSITY & MULTICULTURAL AWARENESS IN EDUCATION. Drexel University. https://drexel.edu/soe/resources/student-teaching/advice/importance-of-cultural-diversity-in-classroom/#:~:text=Students%20who%20learn%20about%20different,in%20their%20interactions%20with%20others.

Goodwin, E. (1994). Five TIp’s for Guiding Children’s Behavior. National Network for Childcare Connections. https://dcf.wisconsin.gov/files/ccic/pdf/five-tips-for-guiding-childrens-behavior.pdf

Hanline, M. (2010). Developing a Preschool Play-based Curriculum. International Journal of Disability, Development and Education. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/103491299100515?needAccess=true

Ilari, B., Cho, E. (2023). Musical participation and positive youth development in middle school. Frontier Psychology. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1056542/full

McDonald, P. (2018). Observing, Planning, Guiding: How an Intentional Teacher Meets Standards through Play. NAEYC. https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/yc/mar2018/observing-planning-guiding

Rosenfeld, D. (2022). Digital Resources for Play-Based Learning in Preschool. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/digital-resources-play-based-learning-preschool/#:~:text=Digital%20Resources%20as%20a%20Launching%20Point%20for%20Play&text=PBS%20has%20also%20developed%20play,the%20launching%20pad%20for%20learning.

Sam. (2020). 7 Great Multicultural Classroom Activities to Involve Parents. Classtag. https://home.classtag.com/blog/multicultural-classroom-activities/

Wheeler, R. (2018). Reading Buddies. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/reading-buddies/