Preschool Archives - Page 2 of 4 - Presidio Knolls School

Building the Future of Bilingual Education

Almost ten years ago, I wrote an article titled "Academic Rigor and Student Engagement: A Perfect Match." While many feared that they would need to sacrifice student engagement in the service of academic rigor, I argued strongly that academic rigor could ONLY genuinely come together with student engagement, and that truly rigorous learning at its core needed to be about exploration, discovery, creativity, inquiry, and pattern recognition.

Elementary

Sharing Best Practices in Immersion Education

PKS was invited to Washington, DC as part of a symposium on immersion education. Seven of our faculty members visited four schools, deepening their knowledge of best practices while sharing some of their own unique insights. Our expertise on how to integrate Mandarin immersion within a progressive framework was noted as "the only model out there combining data-based immersion practices with rigorous PBL."

Community

Happy (Chinese) New Year! 新年快乐！

Our community celebration welcoming the Year of the Dog was PKS's largest-ever Chinese New Year event, with almost 900 people in attendance. Organized over the course of several months by a parent-led committee chaired by Monica Savini, the event featured…

Elementary

Inquiry, Discovery, and the Bilingual Brain

The benefits of a bilingual education (and of a bilingual brain!) are well-documented. They range from positive correlations with executive functioning in the brain to advantages in staving off the devastating effects of Alzheimer’s disease.

Curriculum

Mathematics in Preschool (for Parents!)

Head of Preschool Simona Chongo and Oaktree (P2) teacher Cecilia Wang facilitated a session for parents focused on understanding children’s mathematical development in the preschool years.

Curriculum

Teacher Profile (Effi Wang)

Our goals each year include problem solving, critical thinking, and improving social skills. We provide ample opportunities for children to do hands on projects, based on their own interests, we provide children with engaging materials, and ask them questions to provoke their thinking.

Curriculum

Preschool Curriculum Night

With the same nurturing and joy embodied in our mission and experienced in our classrooms, we involve parents in the cycle of inquiry through small group activities that provide an experience similar to their child’s.

Community

Message from Incoming Head Chris Livaccari

I am absolutely thrilled at the prospect of becoming your next Head of School in July 2018. I would like to thank all of the students, teachers, staff, parents and board members that took the time to meet with me during my visit to school and with whom I have interacted over the last few weeks. I especially appreciated the time I spent in Chinese answering the most challenging questions of all – from the PKS third graders!

Community

Exciting Head of School News

Chris Livaccari, a distinguished language immersion educator, Mandarin scholar, Mandarin speaker, and author, has been named our next Head of School by unanimous vote of the Board of Trustees. Among the highly talented candidates who visited the school in recent months, Chris stood out for his commitment to educational excellence and his deep knowledge of and involvement in Mandarin language learning on an international scale. Chris’s bright vision for PKS’s future and his inquisitive, warm, down-to-earth style made him the ideal match for our school.