THE INFANT SCHOOL

An Infant School served children from sixteen weeks until eighteen months (or potty trained). A daily schedule and lesson plans  provided continuity and emphasized a different global culture each month.  Staff learned from Professors Dolman and Delacotto at the University of Illinois that babies could read if the letters of words and numbers were written large enough. So diaper changing time became a great time for introducing words to the infants.

THE MINI SCHOOL

The Mini School served children eighteen months until they turned two.  The 1967  Mini School Manual describes the school along with eight weeks of lesson plans. A summary of mini-school learnings are shared in this 1973 report, 5th City Preschooling Institute: An Experiment in Early Education..

THE PRESCHOOL

for Three and Four Year Olds

In 1965 the three-four year olds were funded by the U.S. Department of Education Head Start program “because of its provocative approach to change images through art, images, dreams and metaphors”.  Today this age is still being taught with a daily curriculum and environment that bombards them with strong positive images of personal integrity, freedom and creativity through rituals and songs. Karen Bueno documented the preschool songs in Children Singing the New Millennium.   These songs often took old familiar tunes parents knew from their past and rewrote the words to reflect the images of the present day. For instance “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” became “Voom, Room Astronaut”. The Fifth City Preschool was recognized by Headstart in 1969 as “one of the ten best preschools in the United States“.  The three and four year olds are still being taught at the Preschool – click on the banner below to see their Facebook page.

KINDER SCHOOL

As the children turn five years old, they participate in a rite of passage of Preschool Graduation, moving from preschool to a half day of public school kindergarten and the other half day attending the Kinder School. Marjorie Branch, the principal at Erickson Elementary School, told 5th City Preschool staff that the 5th City Kinder Schoolers were always ahead of the other children without a preschool education because they had a a “strong personal identity, an appreciation for learning and working with others, a sense of delight and wonder, and the ability to communicate with confidence.”