Voted 2010: "Oakville's
Best Preschool "
Preschool,
JK, SK,
Afternoon Arts Adventure
Fall Registration:
2011-2012 on now!
The Oakville Academy for the Arts offers award winning,
innovative and progressive arts enriched half day PreK, JK & SK
programs.
Our Reggio Emilia inspired philosophy
and project-based emergent curriculum celebrates a child’s inherent
ability to see the world as whole and inter-connected. Our
outstanding programs ensure that our students spend their formative
years developing skills and habits of mind that will prepare them for
life as avid creative thinkers and inspired learners. Our
Preschool, JK, SK and Afternoon Arts Adventure classes feature dynamic
dance, music and visual arts sessions taught by practicing artists
committed to honing their craft while pursuing a passion for teaching
and education. We offer 2, 3 and 5 day enrolment opportunities for
our Preschool and Kindergarten Programs and 1 or 2 afternoon sessions
for our Afternoon Arts Adventure Program.
For more information on
our enriched learning opportunities,
please contact our Kinderschool
Director, Ms. Kim Speer at 905-844-ARTS.
Preschool Program
“Education
is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.”
Socrates
The Oakville
Academy's award winning Preschool Program is a half day play-based program
designed with the child’s developmental stages in mind. Each morning
session focuses on creative self-expression, sensory awareness, problem solving,
refining motor skills, honing emerging pro-social communication abilities,
building a foundation for future academic skills and cultivating each child’s
imagination and unique perspective of the world around him or her. This
enriched program is designed for children who will be 3 years of age no later
than November 30th of each school year. It provides a perfect learning
introduction to our progressive and exceptional JK/SK program offered to
students meeting those age requirements.
Our
project-based Reggio–inspired program is focused on integrating the arts
with all curriculum areas. Our arts specialists and award-winning
early childhood classroom teachers are dedicated to providing a gentle and
safe learning environment wherein the development of language, math,
science, social emotional and arts skills are fostered in a
developmentally appropriate, play-based fashion.
Young children naturally delight in the arts. Our program provides each
child with the opportunity to experiment with a variety of artistic
media, participate in exciting music experiences, learn age-appropriate
dance techniques and consistently find avenues for meaningful
self-expression. Through these opportunities, young children feel
free to express their individual ideas and feelings while mastering a
sense of autonomy and initiative.
The early childhood years are critical years for
venturing, exploring, playing and creating without fear of failure.
These are also critical years for testing ideas, learning to learn,
problem solving, developing trust and building positive relationships
with peers and teachers. Our program provides the optimum
environment and curriculum needed in order to develop these broad skills
during this particularly sensitive and critical period in a child’s
life.
The Oakville Academy for the Arts Preschool is accepting registrations
for the 2011-2012 academic school year. We are pleased to offer an
exclusive morning program available for registrations either 2, 3, or 5
mornings a week.
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Fine Arts Components:
Visual Arts
Classroom projects and areas of interest will be
enhanced with visual arts throughout the program. With the
guidance of our Head Teacher - also a practicing visual artist, children
will learn about colour, texture, form and technique while being able to
create their own unique works of art as part of their process of
learning. The program offers a lovely balance between teacher
guided art experiences and self-chosen, independent opportunities to
explore paint, paper, sculpting media, drawing tools and found
materials. Within the Preschool Program, artworks are connected to
projects of study and are deeply process-oriented. We do not work
toward craft products, but focus on entire exploration and an
understanding of rich and abundant arrays of art media that serve to
make learning visible.
Creative Dance
The imagination is an invaluable tool. Our
dance specialists will bring each child on a journey through dance using
music, imagination and movement to create a variety of age appropriate
dance experiences. Children will explore the possibilities of what
their bodies can do and how it can serve as a magical vehicle for
self-expression! Students will be introduced to proper posture,
basic dance technique and a variety of fun and exciting dance
opportunities. Full-time Preschool students will dance twice weekly,
while our part-time students will participate in one class.
Sessions are built upon the Royal Academy of Dance's Preschool Ballet
Syllabus as well as offering taste of up-tempo jazz components.
Music
Our Preschool music component features occasional
collaboration with our on-site professional and student
musicians. Full-time Preschool students will enjoy a structured music
class facilitated by their classroom teachers twice weekly. Our
part-time students will participate in this class once per week.
Students will explore rhythm instruments, auditory discrimination
activities, exposure to a wide variety of musical genres, movement and
music games as well as fundamental early learning music concepts.
Our highly qualified early childhood teachers will also incorporate
familiar and new songs, rhymes and musical finger plays into the
curriculum on a daily basis.
Dramatic Arts
Within the framework of the Preschool Program,
students will have abundant opportunity to explore drama.
Exploration of dramatic role playing is consistently available in our
well equipped dramatic play area within the classroom as well as within
the form of group storytelling. During co-operative games and
dramatic exercises, students will have ample opportunity to "act"
dramatically, experiment with speech arts and hone improvisational
skills.
Preschool Sample Schedule
8:40 - 8:50 Arrival
8:45 - 9:00 Greeting circle
Calendar
Morning
program discussion
9:00 - 10:00 Art Enrichment
(divided
groups attend dance, music,
co-operative games, drama etc)
10:00 -10:20 Healthy snack
10:20 - 11:00 Visual arts
component
Free play
(opportunities for science
dramatic
play.
library shelf,
accessing
learning
materials and toys etc)
11:00 -11:20 Group tidy
Songs
and story
Goodbye
11:20 - 11:30 Cloakroom
11:30
Dismissal in Studio B at back door
Junior
Kindergarten
and Senior Kindergarten
Programs
The Oakville Academy Junior and Senior Kindergarten
Programs are half day programs offering an arts-enriched learning
environment for children turning 4 years of age and 5 years of age,
respectively, by the end of December. The Junior Kindergarten program -
offered 5 mornings per week from 8:45am until 11:45am and the Senior
Kindergarten Program - offered during the afternoons from 12:30 pm -
3:35 pm - take place in a beautifully equipped studio classroom.
Following an enhanced Ontario Government Junior Kindergarten and Senior
Kindergarten curriculum, our dynamic and highly skilled
Kindergarten teachers and arts specialists will provide your child with
the opportunity to master skills in all academic and social emotional
areas.
What makes learning at OAA unique and extraordinary?
The Academy’s Junior Kindergarten and Senior
Kindergarten Programs are dedicated to a philosophy that sees children
as whole, capable human beings, having the right to co-construct their
educational experience. We are passionate and committed to
creating an atmosphere wherein children feel like valued members of a
learning community and encourage all children to find and voice their
unique gifts in a supportive and respectful environment. Our goal is to
nurture independent and creative thinkers, enthusiastic life-long
learners, active explorers and compassionate and respectful human
beings. Unlike other community Kindergarten programs, our classrooms
will maintain a ratio of one teacher for 10 students with a group
capacity of 10 children; allowing for optimum support during individual
investigations, skill development and group project work. The Junior and
Senior Kindergarten curricula, while reflecting and meeting the
educational goals set out by the Ontario Government, will be influenced
and inspired by Italy’s famed, Reggio Emilia approach to creating
optimum learning environments for young children. Within the
context of this philosophical movement, young learners are encouraged,
along with their teachers, to decide upon and undertake projects of
study that allow for on-going investigation, in-depth study and the
ability to develop and internalize skills and concepts from the entire
range of curriculum components such as math, language arts, science,
social studies, music, dance/movement and technology.
What is Project – Based Emergent Learning and why does
it provide a superior learning experience?
Within our classrooms, teachers will have exciting and
daily opportunities to integrate curriculum. Activities that are
meaningful and relevant to a child’s life experiences provide intrinsic
motivation and allow for teachers to teach across the curriculum and
assist their students in seeing the interrelationships of the things
they are learning. At the Oakville Academy for the Arts, we are
confident that the Junior and Senior Kindergarten programs will offer
your child the exclusive opportunity to marry an enriching and absorbing
classroom experience with dance, music and the visual arts. The
classroom itself will become a studio of sorts – offering an abundant
array of fine art media, recycled found objects and a host of
captivating natural materials. These resources, combined with
well-chosen learning toys and materials will offer children the
opportunity to make meaningful personal choices on a daily basis.
A growing body of research indicates that intelligence
is not a single quantifiable ability, but rather a set of aptitudes
developed and valued. Professor Howard Gardner, in his widely acclaimed
Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, describes
seven different intelligences through which people think, learn and
process information. Project Based Learning affords students
opportunities to develop and apply these intelligences, thereby
accommodating a wide variety of learning styles and temperaments.
Engaged learners find excitement and pleasure in learning. They possess
a lifelong passion for solving problems and understanding ideas and
concepts. Engaged learners understand that learning is social. They are
able to see themselves and ideas as others see them, can articulate
their own ideas to others, have empathy for others, and are fair-minded
in dealing with contradictory or conflicting views. They have the
ability to identify the strengths and intelligences of themselves and
others. Within our very special Kindergarten programs the shift is
from teaching to that of learning, with an emphasis on finding personal
and meaningful ways to make curriculum areas come alive! We seek to
develop in children and ourselves valuable habits of mind and
dispositions, such as critical thinking, inquiry, research and problem
solving; skills that will put our young learners in good stead as they
arrive upon the doorstep of future academic experience.
Sample Junior Kindergarten Schedule
8:45-9:00 Arrival
and welcome
9:00-9:20 Gathering circle
Calendar
Group planning
meeting
9:20-9:50 Core curriculum (Letterland
Phonics Program, numeracy activities)
Project Work
(embodies math,
science, art, social studies, literacy)
9:50-10:25 Free Play
Tidy – up
10:25-10:45 Story
Snack
10:45-11:30 Art Enrichment
(dance, music, visual arts)
11:25-11:40 Morning reflection
meeting
Dressing for home
11:45
Dismissal in front foyer
Sample Senior Kindergarten Schedule
12:30 - 12:35
Arrival and welcome
12:35 - 12:50
Gathering circle
Calendar
Group planning meeting
12:50 - 1:30
Core curriculum (Letterland Phonics Program, numeracy
activities)
Project Work
(embodies math, science, art, social studies, literacy)
1:30 - 2:15
Free Play
Tidy – up
2:15 - 2:35
Story
Snack
2:45 - 3:15
Art Enrichment
(dance, music, visual arts)
3:20 - 3:30
Afternoon reflection meeting
Begin dressing for home
3:35
Dismissal in front foyer
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Afternoon
Arts Adventure
Afternoons 12:30
to 3:30
Wednesday and Thursday
Participants may register for 1 or 2 sessions
Ages: 3*- 6
(participants must be 3 by the end
of
June 2010
and be fully toilet trained)
The Afternoon Arts
Adventure program at the Oakville Academy for the Arts will take
children ages 3* - 6 through a magical introduction to the Arts.
Young learners will have the option of joining a single Wednesday or
Thursday session or a combination of two classes. This unique and
specialized program will provide opportunities for young artists to work
and experiment with abundant graphic arts media with a practicing visual
artist and early learning specialist, explore ballet and jazz dance
fundamentals with a professional Academy Dance Instructor during a daily
30 minute class, enjoy a healthy snack, make music with our OAA Primary
Music Specialist and have free playtime in our well equipped studio
Preschool classroom.
Afternoon Arts Adventure students arrive for program at 12:30 and are
dismissed in the front foyer at 3:30 p.m.
Participants for this program must be 3 years of age or older by the end
of June 2011 and be fully toilet-trained. Due to the nature of this
program. we are unable to make exceptions to this policy.
Visual Arts Component: A Core Studio Approach
During the school year, children will use the visual
arts to explore ideas of interest and meaning for
them. Philosophically, the Afternoon Arts Adventure Program views art
as an important language to be utilized as a vehicle for expressing
feelings, ideas and emerging beliefs about the world in which we live.
On a daily basis, the Preschool studio classroom will be arranged with a
core fine art experience. For example, students may hear a story
about legendary Canadian painter Emily Carr, view samples of her
paintings, and create their own works of art inspired by her use of
colour, line, form and content. Throughout all exploration, fundamental
elements of colour and design will be reinforced in developmentally
appropriate and captivating ways - using both familiar art materials and
artist-quality materials. As in any high-quality studio experience
for young children, this program will be strongly process-based as
opposed to a take-home craft approach. Students will be encouraged
to gain mastery through the repetition and use of consistent media like
paint, paper, scissors, mark-making implements, dough and clay over time
- it is through this approach that young artists begin to build upon
former skills and become deeply competent and creative!
Dance Component
Within the context of each daily
session, participants will take part in a 30 minute dance class.
Each session will blend primary ballet fundamentals with age-appropriate
up-tempo jazz elements. Both dance genres will emphasize
expressiveness, simple floor routines, body sense as well as rhythm and
co-ordination.
Music Component
During each session, students will
have the opportunity to take part in a lively music class facilitated by
the Academy's Primary Music Specialist. During these 25 minute
sessions, children will explore rhythm instruments, sing in
accompaniment to one of our many pianos, develop auditory discrimination
skills, experience a variety of musical genres, learn new songs and move
their bodies in thrilling and creative ways!
End of the Year Tea Party Recital
At the conclusion of the year, in
June, the Wednesday and Thursday Afternoon Arts Adventure
classes will host a combined Tea Party Recital for family and friends in
our primary on-site dance studio. At this time, we will celebrate
the culmination of much hard work and exploration by sharing a charming
dance presentation, vocal performance and visual arts display.
This event offers our students the perfect opportunity to showcase their
mastered skills while providing family members the opportunity to take
many photographs and to celebrate the determination and efforts of our
special artists!
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Faculty
|
 Kim
Speer
B.F.A., R.E.C.E.
Honours
Director, Kinderschool
Programs
Senior Kindergarten Teacher
Winner of the National
2010-2011 Prime Minister's Award of
Excellence for Early Childhood Education.
Kim
is entering her sixth successful year as the
Director of Kinderschool Programs at the
Oakville Academy for the Arts. Kim is also a
gifted educator and the Senior Kindergarten
teacher of our renowned Senior Kindergarten
Program. Kim graduated from Brock
University's Theatre Performance and
Directing Program and has also received an
Early Childhood Diploma with Honours from
George Brown College, graduating at the top
of her class. She has extensive experience
co-ordinating early learning programs and
teaching studio art classes to young
children in Toronto and the GTA and has,
prior to her tenure with OAA, spent 8 years
as a Preschool and Kindergarten teacher for
the Region of Halton's Children's Services
Department. More than 18 years ago, Kim
embraced the revered Reggio Emilia approach
to creating inquiry and project-based
learning environments. She has passionately
put her research and expertise into practice
as a respected consultant in the Halton
Region and GTA delivering dynamic workshops
to adult learners in many well known early
childhood organizations. For the past two
years, Kim has had the privilege of serving
on an advisory committee and consulting for
the producers of TVO's popular children's
series, Gisele's Big Backyard. Kim and her
husband Peter, an animator in the children's
television industry, are the parents of a
feisty and fabulous young daughter named
Libby. Kim has dedicated herself to creating
progressive, safe and secure learning
environments that allow and encourage
students to take meaningful and creative
educational risks. She is thrilled to work
alongside children as they construct
pathways on their journey towards lifelong
learning.
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Shannon
Speer
R.E.C.E.
Honours
Head Preschool Teacher to Junior Kindergarten Teacher & Wednesday
Afternoon Arts Adventure Instructor
Shannon believes that young children learn best when
they are given the space and time to play, work, create and learn in an
environment in which they are seen as whole, capable and genuinely
unique. Using the Reggio philosophy as a touchstone, Shannon and her
students strive to develop community - a community that plans together,
shares ideas together and learns about themselves and the world
together. The development of a strong and functional EQ is an important
goal for Shannon in her programming at OAA and the results have been
thrilling to observe - capable, respectful, happy, independent and
resourceful little people moving on to Junior Kindergarten!
Shannon is also a practicing visual artist and she and her husband Derek
are the proud parents of two beautiful school-aged children named Max
and Georgia. OAA is proud and pleased to welcome Shannon back for her
6th year of teaching at OAA.
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Kelly Posavec R.E.C.E. Honours
Preschool Teacher
Kelly graduated with honours from the esteemed Early Childhood
Education program at Sheridan College. Kelly has always known that
working with children would become her passion in life.
Immediately after her departure from college, Kelly jumped into the
professional world of early childhood education head on and has never
looked back! She has extensive and varied experience working with
children ages 6 weeks through 6 years of age. Prior to joining the
Oakville Academy for the Arts' teaching faculty, Kelly taught for 8
years at a childcare facility in the GTA and was quickly promoted to the
position of Assistant Supervisor. This opportunity allowed Kelly
to hone her already significant teaching and leadership skills. Kelly’s
image of the child is one who has joy and laughter in their day to day
life; a child who can dream and imagine and be given the freedom to
express their own uniqueness while having their social, cognitive and
physical needs met at all times. Kelly lives in Milton with her husband,
George and their young daughter, Hannah. We are very happy to have
Kelly back for her third year as part our dynamic Preschool teaching
team.
|
 Anita
Roache
NVQ 3,
Great BritainPreschool Teacher & Thursday
Afternoon Arts Adventure Instructor
We are very pleased to welcome Anita
Roache to the Academy's Kinderschool
faculty! Anita completed her teacher
training in the United Kingdom by completing
her NVQ 2 and 3 in Child Care and Early
Years Studies. Her broad and lengthy
teaching experience includes working with
children ranging in age from 3 months to 5
years of age. Alongside her teaching
credentials, Anita has impressive leadership
experience and has served as the manager of
the workplace childcare centre affiliated
with London's BBC. She has a passion
for professional development and a strong
drive to continuously hone her progressive
teaching and early learning strategies.
Anita fulfilled a lifelong dream by moving
to Canada in 2005. During this time,
she has worked as a Nanny and Early
Childhood Educator for a wonderful Oakville
family, caring for their four children - 3
of whom are OAA Kinderschool alumnae. Anita
comes to the Academy after having recently
served as Supervisor for a local Childcare
Centre.
Anita feels privileged to have worked with
many, many children over the years and is
proud to have played a part in their lives.
She wholeheartedly believes that all
children deserve the right to be able to
express their individuality. As an Early
Childhood Educator, she feels it is her
responsibility to provide the very best
opportunities in order to support individual
growth and to enhance a child's own innate
temperament and personality.
Welcome, Anita!
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