Gan Preschool Program
A garden for our Jewish future
See below for more information:
- Gan (Mondays-Wednesdays-Fridays,
9:30-1:30) for ages 2-5
- Gan Yom Rishon (Sundays,
10:00-12:20) for ages 4-5
This program follows the Jewish holiday and Tacoma School
District calendar with each year beginning in September and
ending in June.
It is easier to be a Jewish child in Tacoma if you have
Jewish friends and a Jewish place with which to feel
connected. You can support your child to establish positive
Jewish feelings by bringing him or her to our Gan programs
here at Temple Beth El.
The word “Gan” is a Hebrew word meaning “garden.”
We call our Temple Beth El pre-school “Gan” because our
Jewish children need our loving nurture and care.
In a warm and loving environment, we teach your child that
“the most important thing about me is that I am a valuable
Jewish human being.” In Gan, we learn to see the world
through Jewish eyes. We live the rhythm of the Jewish
calendar year, celebrating holidays and festivals. We
experience the concepts of “tsedakah”
(righteousness--sharing) and “mitzvah” (commandments--good
deeds).
Through music and dance, arts and crafts, Hebrew, and fun
and games, your child will begin his or her journey to
becoming a conscientious Jew.
This program serves preschoolers ages 2 through 5 on
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; and ages 4-5 on Sundays. While
the program is open to Temple Beth El members and
non-members alike, enrollment is limited and priority will be
given first to Temple Beth El members, then to Jewish
non-members, and finally to non-Jewish non-members.
We believe that every child has an innate desire to learn.
Our goal is to cultivate this desire. During the course of
three years, our preschoolers engage in a rich curriculum that
includes the following:
Jewish curriculum and programming:
- Holiday Related, including Shabbat, Rosh Chodesh,
Rosh HaShanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Simchat Torah, Chanukah,
Tu B'Shevat, Purim, Pesach, Lag B'Omer, Yom HaAtzma'ut,
Shavuot and a Jewish approach to secular holidays.
- Hebrew Related, including introduction to Alef
Bet and daily integration of Hebrew.
- Jewish Values and Other Jewish Programming,
including God, Torah, prayer, Israel, Jewish symbols, life
cycles, Jewish art and music, tzedakah, and g’milut chasadim.
A well-balanced preschool curriculum:
- Values and personal responsibility, including
care of self, care of others, care of the environment, grace
and courtesy, good working habits and the development of
focus and concentration needed for higher order thinking
skills.
- Sensorial Exercises/Activities, to support the
development of the senses; including visual, spatial
discrimination, thermal and baric, auditory, tactile,
gustatory and olfactory, and stereognostic.
- Physical Education, to support the development of
fine and gross motor abilities.
- Mathematics, including pre-math activities,
introduction to numeration, linear counting, the decimal
system, and beginning operations.
- Language, which naturally spans into every other
curricular area; it is an integral part of each, as well as
a special area in and of itself. The preschool child's own
tools for language are vision, hearing and speech, as well
as the sensory-motor skills necessary for writing and
reading. In the exercises for sensory education, the
preparation for writing and the preparation for reading are
frequently inherent to the activities. In addition,
specific attention will be paid to the introduction of
specific language development activities, writing
preparation, composition of words, and reading of words.
This will be accomplished through a combination of a whole
language and phonetic based approach.
- Science and other Cultural Activities, designed
to introduce the child to Botany, Zoology, Cosmology,
Astronomy, Physical Geography, History, Multi-cultural
awareness, arts and crafts, music and movement.
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Children may be enrolled in either one or
both of the following Gan programs:
Gan (Monday,
Wednesday, Friday)
Gan is open to children from 2 to 5
years of age. Parents are welcome to join the parent
committee, which is responsible for the oversight of the
program.
Classes meet on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, 9:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Please see the 2007-08 education program catalog
(PDF format--the 2008-09 info is not yet available) for more information.
Gan Yom Rishon is open to children 4 to 5 years of age.
This is a mixed-aged program. Depending upon enrollment,
children will be divided into two classes. (Staff will not be
able to change diapers during the program, so it is suggested
that children be toilet trained.) Classes meet on Sundays,
10:00 a.m. - 12:20 p.m.
We recognize that the greater each individual’s
involvement, the greater the potential for personal
enrichment, and the stronger our community will be. To support
this, our Gan families are required to fulfill a 20 hour per
year minimum community commitment. To meet this requirement,
families must participate in a minimum of 20 hours in any
combination of the following:
- Volunteering within the school
- Parent education
- Jewish family education programming
- Jewish adult education
Scholarships (by
application) for the Gan programs are
available for families needing financial assistance at this
time.
Questions about Gan should be directed to
Tovah Ahdut,
Temple Beth El education director. [back to top]
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