Learn about our preschool below!

Greetings!

We are excited to help you get to know our school. 

We want to give you every opportunity to look deeply at the work going on in our classrooms, to meet our teachers, and to make sure you hear from students about their work and play. We offer tours throughout the school year so that you can find a time to see our teaching and learning in process and have a real, in person experience of the energy in our classrooms. 

Our goal is to work closely with you as you embark on this important process of finding a school for your child and a community for your family. 

Sincerely,

Deiha Torin, Preschool Program Director and Lead Teacher

Our Preschool Program Schedule

​The Island Academy of Hilton Head Preschool offers half day and a full day programs.

Drop off begins at 8:45am.

​We begin our day at 9:00am and run our traditional preschool program till 1:00pm.

​Lunch Bunch is offered from 12:00pm-1:00pm. Children bring their packed lunch and enjoy eating lunch with their friends. Then children explore the classroom centers.

Between 1:00pm and 3:30pm children are given an opportunity to rest, an enrichment lesson, recess, and afternoon snack.

About Us

Learning in the Classroom

Our developmentally appropriate curriculum encourages each of our 3 and 4-year-old children to grow socially and emotionally while learning through play. We believe that preschool age children are curious, capable, and competent learners, therefore we offer hands-on opportunities for them to explore the world around them. A wonder approach to education allows our children to pose questions, make discoveries, and share their ideas and excitement. Our teachers partner with our children by listening closely to what they say, allowing us to guide them and act as a resource for satisfying their curiosity. Our indoor and outdoor areas are carefully designed with learning in mind and serve to essentially become a third teacher for our children.

Exploring and Learning

The Island Academy of Hilton Head Preschool will keep your little one exploring and learning throughout their day.

Island Academy of Hilton Head Preschool buzzes with activity. Our days open with a morning circle time, where children greet one another, sing, and review plans for the day. Then they are off: pursuing their group's growing study of construction or plants, moving through light and space, learning letters and the ways they make words, and creating sculptures with recyclables, or exploring color with paint. During the day, children may discover how letters can be made with their bodies, how water changes and moves, or how stories can be developed dramatically through make-believe. They might practice a quiet moment in movement, listen wide-eyed to a read aloud, or build an animal rescue center with our building blocks. They discuss, investigate, discover, play, get to know one another, learn to resolve conflicts, and grow.

During these years, we seek to teach children that school is home base for their explorations. At Island Academy Preschool, teachers pose positive challenges and respond to children's ideas - using their perspectives to create meaningful studies of the world. In our classroom each day, children learn from "hands to heads," turning real-life experiences with materials, relationships and stories into ideas and concepts.

The classroom and each child's work are comprised of three core components:

Creative Thinking

A great deal of children's work at this age is self-expressive and creative and, as a result, the arts and materials curriculum are at the very center of each child's experience. Children will explore art experiences based on famous artists and genres using various art mediums. A variety self-directed art centers allow the children to be creative, explore the elements of art and gain a further appreciation of the visual arts.

Self and Social Intelligence

​Our three-year olds explore their independence and autonomy, begin to build their own relationships with others, negotiate conflicts, and establish bonds. Teachers support the negotiation, conflict resolution, and relationship building skills that children develop as they grow through this developmental phase. Our four-year olds begin to discover the concept of community and they become increasingly responsible for shaping their classroom culture with their friends.

Throughout your child’s journey, teachers support children in how to think about their interactions with others, and how to help children move through new social triumphs and challenges that are all part of a natural progression of growing up.

Building Skills and Understanding

Our preschool program has an academic goal specific to each age of the child. This corresponds to the types of learning experiences children will have.  In our multiage classroom, teachers support children to further become the protagonists of their own learning. A great deal of the work in the classroom is based on play, developing big questions, and exploring the world with their bodies, both independently and with others. When children reach age four, their curiosities begin to extend to the conventions of the world around them, and teachers follow these interests with emergent work with letters, words and numbers. They also surface and explore questions with children, and naturally pose more complex challenges. At Island Academy Preschool, the teachers follow the SC Early Learning Standards to ensure the development of the whole child, including physical, emotional-social, language, math, cognitive development, and learning characteristics.