3-5 YEARS

ELM promotes the development of the whole child with planned learning experiences focused on specific skills. ELM actively supports the development of 27 foundation skills across eight broad areas for preschool-age children. The eight areas and 27 foundation skills are summarized here: 3-5 Years Areas and Skills Promoted

A list of ELM Curriculum resources for classrooms serving children 3–5 years can be found here: 3–5 Years Ready-to-Go Resources

Activity Plans

ELM’s activity plans for classrooms serving children 3–5 years of age are organized by days within a week. ELM provides 50 weeks of 20 preschool-level activity plans per week (a total of 1000 activity plans). The first page of each week’s set of activity plans—called What Children Will Learn This Week—provides a brief summary of content emphasized during the week. Each plan offers a model of high quality implementation of a small or large group activity and scaffolding tips. Activity plans include a suggested center activity designed to extend the activity to children’s play experiences as well as suggestions for adapting the activity to a family child care setting. Click here to see a sample week of activity plans for preschool-age children.

Tailoring Children’s Learning Experiences

Each activity plan provides scaffolding tips intended to help staff engage in the developmentally appropriate practice of offering challenging and achievable experiences for children. There are two types of scaffolding tips: extra support strategies offer children additional help and enrichment tips offer ideas for adding challenge to an activity.

ELM provides guidance for conducting focused observations of a child’s progress in acquiring foundation skills promoted by ELM. There are 24 Guides for Observing and Individualizing, each specific to a foundation skill promoted by ELM. Each guide suggests a range of individualized follow-up activities to support the development of a target skill. There also are examples of observation summaries, appropriate for a child’s portfolio, in each area promoted by ELM. Click here to see a sample Guide for Observing and Individualizing.

ELM also offers assessments of children’s progress in developing literacy and math skills that research indicates are strong predictors of longer-term positive outcomes, including school readiness. Each assessment suggests a range of individualized follow-up activities for supporting the development of a target skill. All assessments provide examples of assessment summaries for a child’s portfolio. Click here to see a sample assessment.

Family Resources

ELM offers family engagement resources to help staff develop and maintain reciprocal relationships with families.

For classrooms serving children 3-5 years of age, ELM provides a brief summary of foundation skills and activities emphasized each week titled What Children Will Learn This Week. The intent of this resource is to encourage communication between staff and families concerning children’s learning experiences in both family and classroom settings.

ELM also provides a set of brief parenting tips in a handout known as Readiness Starts Early. There is a handout for each week. The tips in each handout directly extend activities in the corresponding week of activities for classrooms. Click here to see a sample What Children Will Learn This Week and Readiness Starts Early.

Examples of portfolio entries are offered in each assessment and some Guides for Observing and Individualizing described above provide guidance for sharing child-specific progress with families.