United Presbyterian Church of Peoria, IL

Our Program

Child writing at the writing center at UPC Discovery Preschool in Peoria, IL UPC Discovery engages children’s minds through active and investigative play, children’s hearts through faith-based activities and Godly Play, children’s curiosity through nature activities and inviting nature into the learning environment, and children’s imaginations through music, drama, and the visual arts. Our Reggio-inspired environment encourages child-centered curriculum and invites young children to discover the world in a natural and authentic way.

Through in-depth project-based learning, children identify what they want to learn more about: flowers, ladybugs, emotions, medicine, reptiles, snowflakes, or anything else that captures their interests and imaginations. Teachers support children as they begin to form questions and guide them to discover the answers through their investigations. Teachers also use the classroom and outdoor environments to provoke new experiences and inspire learning. Children will often spend time in the outside environments to discover more about topics that interest them, and sometimes the outside world is brought into the classroom. Experts in the community are resources as the children investigate topics, and field site visits serve to deepen children’s understanding during project work.

Highly trained teachers document children’s learning, and children’s work is displayed in thoughtful and meaningful ways that communicate to families and visitors the learning taking place in the classroom.

UPC Discovery's Program emphasizes four ways of learning: Play-Based Learning, Nature-Based Learning, Arts-Based Learning, and Faith-Based Learning.

Documentation and Assessment

As early childhood teachers, we must be held accountable for the learning taking place in our classrooms. We cannot plan curriculum without assessing where the children are in their mastery of developmental skills in each learning domain. However, assessment must match curriculum content! If the classroom is designed to encourage authentic learning, then the methods we use to assess that learning must also be authentic.

Play-Based Learning

Children playing with block at UPC Discovery preschool in peoria, IL

Play is essential to young children—it’s how they learn! Children who actively engage in play learn the physical, social, and cognitive skills to succeed in school. As children explore, create, and experiment with new ideas, they begin to make sense of their world. Academic skills like letter recognition, writing, and math are taught in authentic ways and are integrated throughout the curriculum, never taught in isolation.
Our program is enhanced by a state-of-the-art early childhood environment both indoors and outdoors, which invites children to think, wonder, question, problem solve, and learn.

Arts-Based Learning

Children participating in art at UPC Discovery Preschool in Peoria, IL Children express their thoughts and feelings about what they are learning through a variety of arts such as drawing and sculpting, music, language, dance, and drama. Children are naturally creative and use many different “languages” to communicate what they are learning and what they want to know more about. They learn new skills and strengthen their self-concept when they are given the opportunity to create with words, paints, clay, instruments, costumes, puppets, and more.

Nature-Based Learning

Playground at UPC Discovery Preschool in Peoria, IL Children today spend less time outside exploring and discovering in nature and more time indoors in front of screens. Allowing children to play outside, manipulate natural materials, and discover the living world builds self-esteem and encourages critical thinking and creative inquiry. By taking children out into the natural world and bringing nature back into the classroom, children gain a better appreciation for the world around them. A deeper understanding of the natural environment helps children to appreciate that they are part of a larger world and to recognize and value their place in it.

Faith-Based Learning

At UPC Discovery, children are introduced to faith through developmentally appropriate methods. We use Godly Play, a research-based curriculum that introduces children to the concepts of faith, hope, and love. As they watch the Bible story unfold before them with the wooden figures, the simplest concepts of Christian faith become real to them. Children are immersed in the Christian faith in the daily life of the classroom, as they share their joys and concerns and engage in simple prayers and songs.