Academics

The Preschool at Nur-Ul-Islam Academy includes the two-year to five-year olds program.

The Lower School provides a rich learning environment that holistically nurtures the intellectual, social, emotional, and moral growth of each child. Staffed by caring and dedicated educators, the pre-kindergarten program of Nur-Ul-Islam Academy delivers high-level, integrated instruction in a supportive and safe environment. More emphasis is placed on the experience rather than mastery of skills, and on providing a sense of security while encouraging independence and group socialization. It also assists parents/guardians in the spiritual, physical, cognitive, social, and emotional development of their children.

Since each child has a different way of learning, the Pre-kindergarten curriculum is, therefore dedicated to provide:

• Opportunities for each child to freely interact with adults and other children in the process of learning respect and developing the quality of empathy and consideration for others.
• A balanced program of teacher directed and child-centered activities that encourages and stimulates exploration and knowledge of God, oneself, and community.
• Hands-on experience, which will allow for exploration, investigation and creativity learned through play.
• A stimulating environment, speaking, reading, and writing.
• Assessment procedure that will reflect the curriculum goals.

Our Preschool curriculum is designed to introduce, promote and stimulate learning in all developmental areas that includes social, emotional and cognitive skills and prepare young children for Elementary School.

Primary Phonics by Educators Publishing Service was introduced for three and four-year-old students. This program utilizes song and play, pictures and poetry to further enhance the students’ knowledge of the alphabet as well as their phonological awareness.

The McGraw Hill series Door to Discovery is a comprehensive reading program that forms cross-curriculum integration of the following content areas:

Literacy- The program emphasizes listening comprehension, speech production, vocabulary, verbal expression, phonological awareness, print and book awareness, letter knowledge and early word reception, motivation to read and written expression.

Literacy content areas: – This program divides literacy into Five Foundation Knowledge Areas:

• Oral language- This includes speaking, listening and vocabulary
• Phonological Awareness- This introduces sound play, rhyming games, songs and poems.
• Concept of Print- This includes book concepts, text concepts, and directionality.
• Alphabet Knowledge and Writing-
• Comprehension – this includes getting meaning from stories and other text, motivation and interest in reading.

In order to enhance understanding of these Five Foundation Knowledge Areas the program utilizes arts and craft, blocks, cooking, dramatic play, mathematics, science, sensory skills and writing.

The Creative Curriculum Approach is a research-based curriculum that emphasizes the seven components of literacy; Literacy as a sources of enjoyment, vocabulary and language, phonological awareness, knowledge of prints, letters and words, comprehension and books, songs, drama and  play. We have implemented this curriculum successfully in our Preschool.

Splash into Pre-k is an integrated child centred curriculum that helps the teachers build a community of learners. Children are actively engaged and meet learning goals through comprehensive lessons and high interest activities. The Weekly Learner’s Centers support children skill practice with a variety of engaging center opportunities.

The Florida Voluntary Prekindergarten Education Program for four-year old children has also been offered at our academy. The V.P.K program is designed to address and enhance each child’s ability to make age appropriate progress in an appropriate range of setting in development of language and cognitive capabilities and emotional, social, regulatory and moral capacities.

The STAR Reading Program- An interactive computer program introduced in the kindergarten classroom designed to improve the reading level and encourage children to become fluent readers.

Mathematics – the program is design to help children enjoy and challenge the study of math. Our preschoolers study math so they can apply what they learn in everyday situations. The program emphasizes on numbers and operation, Geometry and patterns, spatial sense, measurement, classification and data collection and telling time. This knowledge is used in real life applications by giving concrete examples and hands –on experience to help the child understand basic math principles and concepts.

Science- The science program focuses on developing sense of curiosity and understanding and distinguishing between living and non-living things. The program helps the children to internalize their observations and stimulate high level thinking that enables them to understand the scientific method, learning how to develop hypotheses, design ways to test them, record and compare data.

 Social Studies- Through the social studies program, students explore the diversity of their school, community, city, country, and world, and develop an understanding towards various cultures.

Fine Arts- Wherein the program, we include visual art, craft, music, movement, and dramatic play activities as a base for meaningful, experiential and creative learning. The program provides a safe, nurturing environment that promotes the social, emotional, intellectual, and physical development of each child.

4H (Extra Curricular Activities) – The program’s cooking, swimming, and gardening classes are a fun and educational activities. With new experiences, preschoolers’ self-confidence solidifies, their curiosity is stimulated, and their skills grow along with their bodies and brains. It might look like they’re just playing and having fun, but the children are practicing important social skills, stimulating brain development, acquiring important language, motor and cognitive abilities that prepare them for life-long learning.

Health and Physical Fitness- Wherein the program of physical education program designed to instill healthy lifestyle habits, various safety habits, special awareness and the benefits to the bodies as well as physical activities. In addition, outdoor activities are used to promote group interaction and develop gross and fine motor skills.

Kindergarten – The Kindergarten program is intentionally designed to be a transition period from play as learning and the experiential atmosphere of the preschool programs to the more traditional academic climate of first grade. As a bridge between these two, Kindergarten incorporates elements of each. The program strives to maintain a curriculum that is developmentally appropriate.

The Harcourt Journey’s curriculum was recently introduced in Kindergarten. This program is a comprehensive reading curriculum, which integrates reading comprehension, phonics, spelling, grammar, penmanship, and writing skills.

Each teacher has been appropriately trained in the use of the curriculum to achieve maximum results from the students. The Harcourt curriculum is also used throughout other subjects. This allows for cross curriculum integration.

Reading – Students are encouraged to improve their reading skills through daily practice. Students keep track of their reading using Reading Logs. Each classroom receives grade level Weekly Readers, which improve the reading, comprehension, and critical thinking skills of the students using topics that are engaging for the children and allow students to stay abreast of current issues. Students are also encouraged to develop their creativity and to express themselves through the annual Student Treasure Writing Program. This program enables students to integrate writing in all areas of their studies.

A new series Go Math of the Harcourt Mathematics curriculum was also introduced in Kindergarten. Each student has a set of manipulatives which is essential to the development of the students’ math abilities. The curriculum allows for integration of language arts, science, social studies, and technology skills.

This series is used to invite students to explore real-life situations and to think about real-world challenges using hands-on activities. The approach used throughout this curriculum addresses the needs of all students with varied learning styles. Art integration is used to meet the needs of visual learners, writing and reading those of linguistic learners, and physical activities those of the kinesthetic learners.

The science curriculum is closely linked to the health curriculum. Students are often able to revisit a topic, helping to reinforce the ideas and concepts previously taught. The health curriculum also covers daily life-skills topics such as brushing teeth and eating healthy foods.

The Harcourt Social Studies curriculum allows for easy integration and cross-curricular planning for all the subjects. Topics covered in the social studies curriculum can be reinforced with concepts in mathematics, language arts, and science. The curriculum-provided big books are used for developing the reading and comprehension of the students. Video clips, documentaries, and flashcards can be used to enhance the lesson plan, meeting the needs of different learning styles. Hands-on projects are used to emphasize the lesson topic and give the students the opportunity to explore social studies outside of the classroom.