State-Of-the-Art Preschool Facility

The Newcastle Preschool in Draper was constructed from the ground up to be an optimal setting for educating preschool age children in Salt Lake County. The Newcastle preschool curriculum was developed first, over many years. We then constructed our Draper building in a configuration to deliver that curriculum to 3-5 year old Utah children.

Our challenge was to build a commercial quality preschool building in Utah that felt like a residential home to a four year old. It was our intent to create a comfortable learning environment for a child while concurrently stretching their capacity to thrive and navigate their way through large Utah public schools.

Our ultimate objective is to leverage our facility to holistically prepare each student academically, socially, emotionally and behaviorally to succeed in Salt Lake County elementary schools. Developing children’s attitudes is a key piece of that. We work hard to assure that children complete a preschool experience that produces a 5 year old mind set that says, “I love school and I want to learn more.”

Our Draper preschool facility, our equipment and our materials are tools we use to accomplish that objective:

* Eight spacious classrooms: We have separated classrooms that average 400 square feet each where we teach one class at time.

* Books: Newcastle has a library of over 2,000 books which teachers use in circle time to communicate our weekly social studies themes.

* Music Room and Piano: We have an 800 square foot music room and real piano. We have music specialists who play the piano and conduct a fabulous, age-appropriate music experience every day.

* Educational Toys & Equipment: We have an abundance of carefully selected educational toys that are used in academic learning centers and in free-play activities…. rice tables, water tables, Montessori equipment, wooden puzzles, etc.

* Large Blocks: We have two sets of irreplaceable, antique, large wooden building blocks. They don’t make those anymore.

* Kitchen Sets: Every day each of our students has access to one of our four complete wooden kitchen sets and dress-up racks. Dramatic play is an essential element of Early Childhood Education. Once children get to kindergarten in public schools, those opportunities typically go away.

* Doll Houses: We have four doll houses used by both boys and girls.

* Tree Houses & Lofts: Newcastle Preschool has three very special indoor treehouses to add variety to learning centers and freeplay.

* Materials: We have a substantial preschool curriculum of table top art and writing activities. Consequently we use massive amounts of paper, glue, paint, cotton balls, buttons, pipe cleaners, claydough, pencils, crayons, shaving cream, cornstarch and instant pudding (yes, instant pudding). Visit the school and see how use materials to teach concepts.