Ages 3–5 | Play-Based Learning | Individualized Development | Kindergarten Readiness
CURIOUS MINDS. BIG DISCOVERIES.
Preschool is a time of enormous growth. Children are developing stronger friendships, asking bigger questions, becoming increasingly independent, and discovering just how much they are capable of doing for themselves.
At Little Roots, our Preschool Program gives children the time and space to investigate their interests, experiment with ideas, create, move, communicate, and learn through meaningful play. Educators thoughtfully guide those experiences while recognizing that children do not all develop the same skills at the same time or in the same way.
Our goal isn’t to rush children toward kindergarten. It’s to help them develop the confidence, curiosity, independence, relationships, and foundational skills that allow them to arrive there ready for what comes next.
LEARNING THROUGH PLAY
Children learn by doing. Our classrooms provide opportunities to build, create, investigate, pretend, experiment, problem-solve, and collaborate throughout the day.
GROWING INDEPENDENCE
Preschoolers are encouraged to make choices, care for their belongings and environment, solve age-appropriate problems, practice self-help skills, and take an increasingly active role in their day.
STRONG RELATIONSHIPS
Learning happens best when children feel safe, known, and connected. Educators build relationships with each child while helping children develop friendships, communicate their needs, navigate conflict, and become part of a classroom community.
OUR PRESCHOOL CURRICULUM
Our preschool curriculum is intentionally designed around how young children learn best: through play, exploration, repetition, relationships, and hands-on experiences. Educators plan meaningful learning opportunities while remaining flexible enough to follow children’s interests, questions, and emerging skills.
Learning happens throughout the entire classroom. Building with blocks develops early math and problem-solving skills. Dramatic play strengthens language, creativity, and social development. Art invites experimentation and self-expression. Even a conversation between friends can become an opportunity to practice communication, negotiation, and emotional regulation.
Our curriculum is guided by the Vermont Early Learning Standards (VELS) and supported through ongoing observation and assessment using Teaching Strategies GOLD (TSG). These tools help our educators understand each child’s development, thoughtfully plan next steps, and provide experiences that meet children where they are.
EARLY LITERACY & LANGUAGE
Books, conversations, songs, storytelling, writing experiences, and intentional early literacy activities help children build vocabulary, phonological awareness, print awareness, and a growing understanding of how language works.
MATH & SCIENCE
Children investigate numbers, patterns, measurement, sorting, shapes, nature, cause and effect, and early scientific concepts through hands-on experiences, classroom materials, and everyday questions.
CREATIVE EXPRESSION
Art, music, movement, dramatic play, and open-ended materials give children opportunities to experiment with ideas, represent their thinking, develop fine-motor skills, and express themselves in ways that are uniquely their own.
SOCIAL & EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Children practice identifying emotions, communicating needs, developing friendships, navigating disagreements, taking turns, solving problems, and participating as members of a classroom community with support from their educators.
BUILDING THE FOUNDATIONS FOR READING
Early literacy at Little Roots is about building strong foundations rather than rushing children into formal reading instruction. Preschoolers are introduced to letters and their sounds through The Reading Way, with time to explore and revisit each letter through meaningful, developmentally appropriate experiences.
Letters are explored over an extended period rather than raced through, giving children repeated opportunities to hear sounds, recognize letters, make connections, and build confidence. These experiences are supported by books, songs, conversation, writing materials, and literacy-rich play throughout the classroom.
LEARNING THROUGH OUR CLASSROOM
BUILDING & CONSTRUCTION
Blocks, loose parts, vehicles, and building materials invite children to design, experiment, plan, measure, problem-solve, and work together.
DRAMATIC & IMAGINATIVE PLAY
Open-ended dramatic play gives children opportunities to recreate familiar experiences, invent new ones, develop language, practice social skills, and explore different roles.
MATH & SCIENCE
Hands-on materials encourage children to count, sort, compare, measure, investigate, predict, experiment, and ask questions about how their world works.
WRITING & LITERACY
Books, drawing and writing materials, environmental print, names, letters, and meaningful opportunities to make marks help children discover that spoken and written language carries meaning.
ART & CREATIVE EXPLORATION
Children have opportunities to work with a variety of art materials and processes. The focus is on exploration, creativity, and children’s own ideas rather than making every child’s work look the same.
SENSORY & DISCOVERY
Sensory materials, light-table experiences, manipulatives, and rotating investigations give children another way to explore concepts using their hands, senses, and natural curiosity.
LEARNING BEYOND THE CLASSROOM
Outdoor time is an important part of every preschool day at Little Roots. Children are given opportunities to run, climb, balance, dig, investigate, create, and experience Vermont’s changing seasons firsthand.
Outdoor play supports far more than physical development. It gives children opportunities to take appropriate risks, solve problems, cooperate with friends, observe nature, ask questions, and engage their senses in ways that simply can’t be recreated indoors.
Whenever possible, we bring learning outside rather than treating outdoor time as a break from learning. Nature investigations, art, stories, movement, science experiences, and plenty of wonderfully messy discoveries can all become part of our outdoor day.
A DAY IN PRESCHOOL
Preschool days at Little Roots balance predictable routines with plenty of room for play, exploration, creativity, and the unexpected discoveries that happen when children are given time to investigate their ideas.
Children experience a combination of child-led play, teacher-guided learning experiences, meals and snacks, outdoor exploration, rest, and opportunities to come together as a classroom community. Our routines help children know what to expect while still allowing educators to respond to the needs and interests of the group.
ARRIVAL & MORNING EXPLORATION → MORNING MEETING → LEARNING & PLAY → OUTDOOR EXPLORATION → MEALS & CONNECTION → REST & QUIET TIME → AFTERNOON DISCOVERY → HOME
OBSERVING GROWTH & DEVELOPMENT
Children grow in different ways and at different rates. Rather than measuring preschoolers against a single expectation, our educators observe children during their everyday play, interactions, routines, and learning experiences to understand the skills they are developing and where additional support or challenge may be helpful.
Little Roots uses Teaching Strategies GOLD (TSG) to document and support children’s development across multiple areas of learning. Observations collected during authentic classroom experiences help educators plan meaningful next steps while providing families with a fuller picture of their child’s growth over time.
These observations aren’t separate from children’s days. A teacher may learn about a child’s mathematical thinking while they build with blocks, language development during dramatic play, fine-motor development while they create art, or social-emotional growth while they work through a disagreement with a friend.
PARTNERING WITH FAMILIES
Families are an important part of the learning process. Through regular communication, classroom updates, developmental information, and parent-teacher conferences, we work to create a connection between what children are experiencing at Little Roots and what families are seeing at home.
Through ChildPilot, families can stay connected to their child’s day and receive classroom updates, photos, and important information from Little Roots.
We also encourage families to share what they’re noticing at home. New interests, skills, challenges, family experiences, and milestones can all help educators better understand and support the whole child.
PREPARING FOR KINDERGARTEN AND BEYOND
Kindergarten readiness is about much more than knowing letters, numbers, colors, and shapes. At Little Roots, we help children build the broad foundation of skills they will need to confidently enter their next learning environment.
Throughout the preschool day, children practice communicating their needs, following classroom routines, caring for their belongings, working with others, solving problems, completing increasingly complex tasks, and developing the independence to try things for themselves. At the same time, intentional learning experiences support early literacy, mathematics, language, fine- and gross-motor development, and critical thinking.
Our goal isn’t to turn preschool into kindergarten early. It’s to give children the experiences, relationships, skills, and confidence they need to be ready for kindergarten when kindergarten arrives.
CONFIDENCE & INDEPENDENCE
Children are encouraged to make choices, attempt new challenges, care for themselves and their environment, ask for help when they need it, and experience the satisfaction of doing increasingly complex things independently.
SOCIAL & EMOTIONAL SKILLS
Children practice participating in a group, developing friendships, expressing emotions and needs, navigating disagreements, waiting, listening, cooperating, and adapting to classroom routines.
ACADEMIC FOUNDATIONS
Through play and intentional learning experiences, children develop early literacy, language, mathematical thinking, scientific inquiry, fine-motor skills, and other foundations that support future classroom learning.
UNIVERSAL PRE-KINDERGARTEN
Little Roots participates in Vermont’s Universal Pre-Kindergarten program, commonly known as Act 166. Eligible preschool-aged children may receive publicly funded pre-K tuition through their local school district while attending Little Roots.
Because eligibility, enrollment requirements, and funding are administered through Vermont’s Universal Pre-K system and participating school districts, families should contact their local district for current information about their child’s eligibility and enrollment process.
READY TO EXPLORE PRESCHOOL AT LITTLE ROOTS?
The best way to understand our Preschool Program is to see it in action. Visit our classroom, explore the learning environment, meet our educators, and see what a day of play, discovery, and learning looks like at Little Roots.
