Early Childhood

• The Creative Curriculum for Infants, Toddlers & Twos is used to support the whole child's development with high-quality, comprehensive resources for intentionally teaching and caring for our youngest learners during these most critical and formative years of development. Daily routines and meaningful learning experiences in mathematics, language, literacy, cognitive and physical development, science and technology, the arts, social studies, English-language acquisition, and social-emotional learning are used to shape our students as tomorrow’s leaders. Teachers encourage a child’s curiosity through hands-on experiences and address the developmental domains of play-- fine and gross motor skills, social/emotional skills, language, and cognitive skills. 
• USJ also offers a 3 day or 5-day program for Jr. Cubs (2-year-olds). Each day, children attending this program will have an enrichment class: Physical Education, Art, Music, Spanish, and Character Education.

• Early childhood education should encourage children’s active exploration and creativity. At the same time, they are integrating developmentally appropriate subject matter to include phonological awareness and number concepts. We acknowledge and accept the varied and different development rates present in each child. Our classes strive for the optimum growth potential of the child while providing a positive learning environment. Children learn to function as a classroom community, learning independence in a safe and nurturing setting. We believe child-directed, and teacher-supported active learning is the key to a quality program for children this age. Nursery Rhymes are incorporated as monthly themes to help promote early literacy and social, emotional, physical, and cognitive growth within each child. 
• USJ also offers a 3 day or 5 day program for Cubs(3-year-olds). Each day, children attending this program will have an enrichment class: Physical Education, Art, Music, Spanish, and Character Education.
• Children must be independently potty trained to attend Cubs.

The Jr. Kindergarten program encourages a sense of security and independence by using various instructional tools for individual, small group, and whole-group experiences. The classroom environment is tailored to meet each student’s needs and stimulate a love of learning in all developmental areas.

• Handwriting without Tears is a developmentally based handwriting program used to progress our students' fine motor skills and visual skills through fun and interactive activities.
• By exploring Fairy Tales, students will learn pre-reading skills, phonics, phonemic and print awareness while developing a love for reading.
• The mathematics curriculum is designed to help  students develop number sense and computational fluency as they explore a range of problem-solving strategies through hands-on experiences.