Pre-Primary
Sancta Familia Lessons for the years before first grade are complete packages and learning is centered on common preschool and kindergarten themes.
On Early Education
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For the first eight to ten years of a child's life the field or garden is the best schoolroom, the mother the best teacher, creation the best lesson book. With leaf and flower and tree, and with every living creature, from the leviathan of the deep to the speck of dust in the sunbeam, we can learn from each the secrets of its life. Teach the children to see the glory of Christ in all of nature. Take them out into the open air, under the noble trees, into the garden; and in all the wonderful works of creation teach them to see an expression of His love. As Basil the Great, bishop of Caesarea, has said, "If you speak of a fly, a gnat, or a bee, your conversation will be a sort of demonstration of His power whose hand formed them; for the wisdom of the workman is commonly perceived in that which is of little size. He who has pierced a passage through the sting of the bee for the injection of poison."
~Christian Liberty Nature Reader, Book One |
The origin of kindergarten lies with the Prussian model of schooling, admired by Horace Mann et al, and was instituted to remove children from the influence of their parents at an earlier age. (Please read The Public School Nightmare by John Taylor Gatto for more information on the history and development of our current public and private school structure.)
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The declining influence of domestic environment is further weakened by another tendency, prevalent almost everywhere today, which, under one pretext or another, for economic reasons, or for reasons of industry, trade or politics, causes children to be more and more frequently sent away from home even in their tenderest years. And there is a country where the children are actually being torn from the bosom of the family, to be formed (or, to speak more accurately, to be deformed and depraved) in godless schools and associations, to irreligion and hatred, according to the theories of advanced socialism; and thus is renewed in a real and more terrible manner the slaughter of the Innocents.
~Pius XI, Divini Illius Magistri, 1929 |
Though an academic kindergarten is not necessary, children of Kindergarten age are eager to learn. The homeschool setting is ideal. Especially if there are older children "doing school," your preschool and kindergarten age children will want to “do school” too. Sancta Familia Academy offers guidance and curricular recommendations for your 4-6 year old child at home.