Tailored Curriculum

Hamm Center Teachers, Speech-Language Pathologists, and Educational Audiologists work in concert to maintain classrooms where each child has access to each and every sound of speech in each and every word that is spoken by peers and staff. Classrooms are designed to keep hallway voices in the hallway and classroom voices accessible to our students. In addition, classrooms are fitted with remote-microphone technology (personal and sound-field) to negate the effects of distance from the person talking and noise in the classroom. This intention is crucial as children are building their repertoire of cumulative auditory experiences. Vocabulary, language structures, and articulation targets are individualized for each child and addressed through meaningful interactions, songs, and games. In addition, our Speech-Language Pathologists join classrooms for small group language activities and pull children out for additional articulation practice.

Teachers are deeply versed in the tenets of early childhood mathematical thinking and its foundational importance to later academic achievement. Capturing mathematical moments throughout the school day, math talk is readily heard in preschool classrooms. Connecting these natural, informal experiences in meaningful ways and building upon them facilitates children’s confidence with understanding the language of math, the meaning of numbers, simple problem solving, and learning more formalized math concepts as they grow.  Math activities guide the children's deep, meaningful understanding of number sense, simple operations, geometry and shapes, and measurement, as well as patterning.

Biweekly thematic units are organized by exciting, engaging early childhood science and social studies topics. Anchored by a relevant sophisticated children’s storybook, teachers design the classrooms to expose children to these science and social studies' themes and concepts through fun meaningful activities and experiences. Thematic language, curiosity, simple experiments, connection, and creative pretend travel around the world lends to experiences of cultures and holidays that contribute to the children’s discovery of themselves, their community and the world around them.   

All KHC Preschool students participate in Enrichment classes intentionally designed for their specific age.  Our Twos engage with our Learning Commons’ media specialist and our music teacher in their classrooms where they share magical experiences related to the current curriculum.  Additionally, our preschool counselors work alongside children as they playfully engage in games and songs that build social-emotional and executive function skills.  

Through a daily rotation schedule, Hamm Center Threes join our Kenan Threes, and Hamm Center Pre-K students join students in Kenan and Stepping Stones preschools for Art, Music, Learning Commons, P.E. and OT/P. as small groups. These Enrichment group experiences provide an opportunity for our students to develop relationships outside of the Hamm Center and support awareness of the gifts of others.

Because all development in early childhood is interrelated, the physical development of Hamm Center students is purposefully facilitated alongside all other developmental areas at each age level by teachers and specialists. Children’s growing muscles are strengthened through a variety of activities. Sensory bins, playdough, beads, table toys, and a variety of drawing utensils and tools are used intentionally and children are guided through learning games, like clapping and stomping during rhyming activities. Our playground provides the setting for all sorts of large motor practice: swinging, balancing, running, skipping, climbing, galloping, jumping, etc. Integrated into the Hamm Center classrooms, our occupational therapists spend time each week to support developmentally appropriate visual spatial, fine motor, and sensory integration skills through games and thematic activities, including the Handwriting Without Tears program. Our Enrichment teachers round out the fun during the P.E. and OT/PE classes. 

The understanding that emotional understanding of self and others and the creation and expansion of social relationships is not only critical to learning, but a life-long skill, our children’s self-awareness, agency, and engagement with others are intentionally supported throughout the school day with the best and most relevant resources, trusting interactions, and tools available. Throughout the safe routine of the school day, classroom teachers and specialists use teachable moments to model emotional language, set expectations for the classroom with students, facilitate social problem-solving scenarios, and provide tools and support for the transference of self-regulation to the children. Additionally, all Hamm Center classrooms participate in weekly Sunshine Circles and Threes and PreK students engage in Social and Emotional Learning activities. These are interactive play-based curriculum designed to teach social-emotional and executive functioning skills in the classroom setting. Skills such as empathy and perspective-taking, joint attention, sharing and taking turns, body awareness, and impulse control are taught through large and small group social play activities.