Pre-Kindergarten

Our Pre-Kindergarten Program fosters joy in discovery and learning in a Catholic environment that nurtures the whole child in the areas of spiritual, social/emotional, physical, cognitive, and language development. While the Pre-Kindergarten at St. Thomas More Cathedral School is academic in nature, the philosophy espoused by our program is that of St. Thomas More, our patron:

“Education is not the piling on of learning, information, data, facts, skills, or abilities – that’s training or instruction – but is rather making visible what is hidden as a seed.”

The Pre-Kindergarten year is a time for children to experience school, many for the first time, where they discover how to function successfully in a structured environment and develop new friendships with teachers and classmates in addition to learning many academic concepts as they soak up everything around them. Being connected to the Cathedral they are blessed to have the parochial vicar visit the classroom every other week, another role model as they develop their Catholic identity. By they end of your child’s year in Pre-Kindergarten they will have gained many friendships, developed emotionally and socially, expanded their physical gross and fine motor skills, widened their background knowledge on a variety of subjects, learned that they are a child of God who is loved unconditionally by the Father, and developed many pre-reading skills that will set them up for success with beginning reading in Kindergarten!

St. Thomas More offers a 5 day Pre-Kindergarten Program for children who will be age 4 by September 30. Instruction in Pre-K is focused on learning through play with a variety of center activities for hands-on learning around the classroom for children to engage in while the teacher is instructing small groups. The classroom aide works with groups of children on craft projects connected to the weekly themes followed during the Pre-K year.

5 day program with 3 dismissal options - 12:45, 3:15 or 6pm
Philosophy of learning through play in small group hands-on center based activities
Full time teacher and aide in classroom
Two to three recesses per day
Instructional materials include Writing our Catholic Faith, Words Their Way for Emergent Readers, Scholastic and Seeds Magazine

St. Thomas More Cathedral School follows the Curriculum Guidelines of the Diocese of Arlington Catholic Schools.

The core curriculum consists of instruction in the following subjects:

Religion

Reading

Language Arts

Mathematics

Science

Social Studies

Students also participate in the following special classes:

Art

Spanish

Library Skills

Technology

Physical Education

Music