At the Ocean Vista Pre-K, English Learner children develop language skills and build vocabulary in their home language and English through informal conversation, concrete experiences, and oral interaction with multilingual/multicultural children's literature. Children explore each day's carefully planned center and free play activities. These might include opportunities to count and match toy animals to strawberry basket "cages," sorting a teacher's laundry bag of socks and mittens, creating a 3-D art object from found, "authentic" materials, and measuring ingredients for pozole (stew/soup with hominy). Inspired by a presentation by community dental health professionals, children don doctors' and nurses' props strategically placed in the dramatic play center and enact an imaginary scenario of a visit to the dentist.
The science table offers a rotating display including hermit crabs, a snail terrarium, a hamster, fish, or a variety of seedlings planted by the children, depending upon current themes, experiences, and the children's interests.
Teachers participate in regularly scheduled professional development, which hones the curriculum to an increasingly challenging and relevant level. Topics include:
Rather than using structured, lock-step curriculum, teachers often use large sheets of butcher paper as their textbook, drawing and writing about current topics and events the children have experienced. Including children's languages in this and other activities is considered a normal part of learning to communicate. Following a trip to the zoo, both teachers and children produce drawings and comments about the experience, resulting in a meaningful collaborative poster "story" about the fieldtrip that children read from and enjoy for many days.