Learning about Jesus

The Weekday Preschool staff at Mount Pleasant Christian Church (MPCC) works with young children to develop in them a love for Jesus.  According to preschool director Rea Gray, “The most important aspect is teaching children about God, that Jesus is God’s Son and Jesus died on the cross for ALL mankind out of His love for each one of us. The secondary portion of our mission is to prepare children for success in kindergarten and first grade.”

“We have a great preschool curriculum. Although we are not state-licensed, we use the state standards as the outline for our curriculum,” said Rea. The children are taught in accordance to the age of each class. Hands-on learning takes place through activity centers and is reinforced through circle-time for group instruction. Students in the toddler’s and two’s classes learn social skills and how to adjust to being apart from their parents, as well as study colors, shapes, letters, name recognition and Bible memory verses.

The pre-k program develops the children’s skills with Bible stories and memory verses while teaching positive interaction with others. They focus on academics by beginning to recognize letters, simple numbers below 20, and a re-emphasis on colors and shapes. Kindergarten students learn to read and write short sentences, read and discuss short books, and figure basic math.

Weekday Preschool, with its current enrollment of 240, also features many fun events for the children and their parents, including classroom parties, Dad’s Night, City Days, Thanksgiving Feasts, a Christmas program, Hospital Day, Creation Celebration, Mom’s Night and a closing graduation ceremony.

“In the kid-sized chapel, children learn the monthly Bible emphasis and see it acted out by peers in a puppet show or by seeing and touching a replica of some portion of the story. An example would be while learning the story of Jonah, the children sat in the mouth of a ‘whale,’” said Rea. “Preschool-aged children learn best through repetition, and that is a key element of Jesus Time, a classroom teaching that complements the weekly chapel lesson. The same Bible tale and memory verse are discussed each day for a month, in many different ways to make learning more fun and understandable.”

The preschoolers range in age from 12 months through kindergarten. With a capacity for 270 children, the preschool runs two and three-day programs, offering morning and afternoon classes. The kindergarten classes meet Monday – Thursday from 9am – 3:30pm.

by Valerie McDonald