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The International School of Charlottesville (ISC) is a learning community dedicated to developing the whole child as an individual as well as a member of the community. Throughout the learning years at ISC children are guided to express themselves with confidence.
We believe that very young children learn through their senses and through play. By giving them the opportunity to see, hear, feel, smell and taste, and by allowing them time, materials and space for pretend and symbolic play, we provide in-depth learning experiences.
During the preK/Kindergarten years, ISC continues to emphasize social development, but preK/Kindergarten students spend more time on teacher-guided concept and knowledge-oriented activities. During the PreK/Kindergarten years the children will review and deepen many of the concepts and competencies they have been introduced to and have acquired during their preschool time.
The preK/Kindergarten students continue to learn through their senses and their bodies. New concepts are always introduced and practiced with manipulatives or other sensory materials. Space and time for pretend and symbolic play and creative activities continue to be widely available to the children to allow for emotional and cognitive processing of learning experiences.
Language development is crucial to the development of abstract thinking and competency in literacy. Children develop language in a variety of ways at ISC. They engage in meaningful conversations with their teachers, they listen to stories, participate in singing and rhyming games, they are giving time and space to share their ideas and discoveries with the teachers and their peers, and they have time to engage in social and symbolic play. Older children are offered more structured literacy activities. They learn the letters of the alphabet in a variety of ways which engage all their senses. They are exposed to printed language throughout the classroom. They keep journals, make books, and write letters or labels. In Kindergarten the children receive structured reading instruction. By the end of Kindergarten all the children are emergent readers.
Mathematical concepts are taught in a hands-on manner. Children sort, count, shape, and play with mathematical concepts. By the end of Kindergarten the children are familiar with the concepts of additions, patterns, measurement, basic geometry, and data graphing.
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