Your child’s daily schedule at Immaculate Conception-St. Joseph School is designed with NAEYC® best practices in mind, ensuring a balanced mix of quiet and active play, large and small group activities, and opportunities for independent or social play. Each day includes self-selected and teacher-directed activities, fostering autonomy and skill development. Children learn self-help skills such as toileting, dressing for outdoor play, and washing hands while also engaging in classroom tasks like table-setting and cleaning up. Outdoor play, twice a day on our playlot with a play structure, promotes physical activity, social interaction, and gross motor development. NAEYC® guidelines emphasize the importance of a balanced, play-based environment, ensuring children have meaningful, developmentally appropriate experiences throughout the day.

Early Childhood Program Curriculum Highlights 

• Handwriting Without Tears®
  A research-based program providing multisensory, developmentally appropriate tools for teaching handwriting. This aligns with NAEYC®'s focus on fostering fine motor skills and individualized learning.

• RULER (SEL) Program
  An evidence-based approach to social and emotional learning developed by the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. RULER helps the ICSJ community:

  • Understand the value of emotions
  • Build emotional intelligence skills
  • Create and maintain a positive school climate
    NAEYC® recognizes the importance of emotional development in early childhood, making this program an integral part of our curriculum.

• Illinois Early Learning Standards
  ICSJ faculty design hands-on, interactive, and child-focused lessons aligned with these standards, ensuring that learning is centered on students' interests. This approach follows NAEYC®'s recommendation to provide developmentally appropriate, child-driven learning experiences.

• Heggerty Phonemic Awareness & CKLA
  Students develop phonological awareness and early literacy skills through engaging, developmentally appropriate activities. In addition to Heggerty, the CKLA (Core Knowledge Language Arts) program supports phonics instruction through structured, systematic lessons that build literacy skills. Both approaches align with NAEYC® principles by promoting language development in a supportive and creative environment.