Our curriculum
At Foundations, children learn through books, play, conversation, art, and the projects they build together. We plan carefully, but we leave plenty of room for children to follow their own ideas.
Our Preschool and Junior K classrooms use literature-rich collections alongside long stretches of child-led play. We don't replace exploration with worksheets or ask every child to make the same finished product.
The sections below explain how we use those collections, how the approach changes with age, and what the learning looks like in a real activity.
Preschool and Junior K
How we build a month of learning
In Preschool and Junior K, we use Wisdom Wonder Project (WWP) collections as part of our curriculum. Each book comes with planned conversations, structured activities, and project-based experiences that help children investigate its ideas through materials, movement, building, art, and discussion. Our teachers make those experiences their own, and we also provide plenty of open-ended play that is not directed toward a predetermined outcome.
Literature
Four picture-book studies each month. We revisit one featured story each week, then bring it into hands-on work: building, observing, acting out, experimenting, and creating. Reading helps children recognize the ideas behind what they are doing; their projects let them investigate those ideas firsthand.
Block Play
A separate picture book anchors a month-long study with planned building and mapping challenges. Children test what stands, what fits, and how places connect. The blocks stay available for new designs and child-led ideas, too.
Little Masters Art
Another book introduces an artist or art concept for the whole month. Teacher-planned projects introduce materials and techniques, then children investigate with paint, collage, shape, and texture in their own ways. The goal is discovery and expression, not identical artwork.
Books overlap. That's intentional.
The week's literature book doesn't replace the Block Play or Little Masters books. All three studies lead to hands-on experiences that can continue alongside one another. Children encounter multiple books across a day, and they use what those books introduce to build, experiment, create, and play. The story opens a door; the projects give children room to explore what is on the other side.
Both planned projects and child-led play
A book may lead to a teacher-planned project, such as planting peas, building a neighborhood, or investigating how objects float. Later, the materials can be available for children to explore in their own way. Teachers observe what interests the group, adjust questions and materials, and decide when to join the play or give children room. Children can communicate their thinking through words, movement, building, pictures, gestures, or assistive communication. The plan gives us a starting point, not a requirement that every child do the same thing.
How this looks at different ages
Children don't need the same kind of day at 20 months, 3 years, and 5 years.
Littles
Our Littles do not follow the Wisdom Wonder Project book collections. That's a deliberate developmental choice, not a gap in their education. At this age, the curriculum is woven into an environment where children can move, explore, communicate, build relationships and practice doing things for themselves. Teachers plan experiences and respond to the interests and abilities they observe.
A toddler may return to the same favorite story many times, put words to something they discovered, experiment with pouring water, carry materials from one place to another, build and knock down towers, or help with a familiar routine. Those experiences are the curriculum in action—with adults who know what developmental skills they're supporting and when a child is ready for more.
Language, books and communication
Teachers read and reread stories, sing, talk with children during routines, name what children point to, and respond to words, gestures and other communication. Children build understanding and expressive language through genuine exchanges—not only group lessons.
Movement, senses and early problem-solving
Climbing, balancing, stacking, opening containers, sensory materials and simple loose parts help children coordinate their bodies, understand cause and effect, compare sizes and discover what materials do.
Independence and practical life
Children have time to help clean up, carry things, pour, wash hands, put items away and participate in meals. Teachers support these tasks as children become capable, without rushing in to complete every step for them.
Relationships and regulation
Teachers help children communicate needs, build trust, handle frustration and find ways to participate alongside others. These skills develop through steady relationships and real moments of play and care, not through expectations that toddlers behave like older preschoolers.
Observation and individualized next steps
We use CDC developmental milestones as a broad reference and share quarterly observations with families. Teachers use what they see to adjust materials, language, the environment and the support offered—not to demand that every child reach a milestone on the same day.
By the time a child enters Preschool, they have had many opportunities to practice listening, communicating, moving independently, solving simple problems and participating in a community. That foundation matters just as much as the more recognizable book projects they will encounter later.
Preschool
Preschool begins at age 3. During the more curriculum-focused parts of the day, children spend time in a smaller classroom within Foundations. This more contained setting helps them gradually become comfortable with group experiences, classroom routines, and expectations before navigating those experiences in our larger environment. It also gives teachers the opportunity to be especially responsive as they introduce new ideas, support transitions, and set reasonable, developmentally appropriate boundaries.
Children explore Literature, Block Play, and Little Masters through short, flexible experiences. The collections include structured projects tied to books, and we pair those with open-ended materials and plenty of time to play. A story about an apple tree might lead to a planned block-building activity and then to children using those same blocks to invent something entirely different. There is no expectation that every child participate in exactly the same way.
During focused experiences
A smaller group setting, frequent read-alouds, project work linked to books, and teachers guiding emerging routines without asking too much too soon.
During open-ended play
Children exploring materials more freely, practicing language and relationships, and using the ideas from a story in ways of their own.
Junior K
By Junior K, our 4- and 5-year-olds are given more space and freedom during the curriculum-focused parts of the day. They have had time to become familiar with our routines and boundaries, so teachers can offer greater independence in selecting materials, developing projects, and moving between related experiences. They still receive guidance and supervision; the expectations simply grow with the children.
The same three WWP collections offer books, planned projects, and questions, but children can investigate ideas with more independence and sustain work over longer periods. A literature study might lead to a science investigation, while a Block Play project might develop into an entire neighborhood. Other times a child’s own question takes the work somewhere nobody had planned. We protect that kind of play alongside the structured experiences.
During focused experiences
More room to build, research, create, discuss, and return to projects with increasing independence.
During open-ended play
Children choosing directions for their work, solving social and practical problems, and testing their own ideas with teachers nearby.
From our actual curriculum
A month in Junior K: April
Here's how the books become experiences children can touch, build, test, and create. April includes four weekly Literature studies, one Block Play study, and one Little Masters Art study running throughout the month. Each has several planned activities and projects. Our teachers choose and adapt them for the group, alongside plenty of open-ended play.
These are selected activities from the actual April curriculum, not every project in each study and not a fixed schedule.
Four weekly Literature studies
The featured story changes each week. Its characters, setting, or central problem provide a starting point for several different kinds of work.
Week 1
The Princess and the Pea
Make a stack of mattresses: Children arrange patterned fabric strips like the layered bed in the story, experimenting with counting, order, and design.
Grow real peas: In a separate extension, children plant a pea vine and watch for changes over time. The tiny pea from the story becomes a starting point for scientific observation.
Week 2
The Watcher: Jane Goodall’s Life with the Chimps
Build a chimpanzee forest: Blocks become trees and small figures become chimpanzees for hiding, finding, and counting.
Make binoculars and observe: Children make simple observation tools and look carefully at the outdoor world. Both activities connect to Jane Goodall's patient study of chimpanzees.
Week 3
The Three Little Pigs
Design and test houses: Children build shelters with blocks, discover what makes them unstable, and try new designs.
Experiment with mortar: They use playdough between small blocks to see how a wall changes. The pigs' building problem becomes an engineering problem children can investigate themselves.
Week 4
The Old Man & His Door
Decorate a puerta: Children create a sign for a real door, connecting a Spanish word to something familiar and usable.
Investigate sinking and floating: Because the man uses his door to float across a lake, children predict and test what happens to different objects in water.
Two studies continuing all month
These are not extra reading assignments. They bring different hands-on projects into the classroom while the weekly Literature books change.
Block Play
Thank You, Omu!
Build for the neighbors: Children construct Omu's apartment building and design a table large enough for the guests who come to share a meal.
Map the neighborhood: They trace visitors' journeys and work with routes and roads. The story's neighborhood creates real reasons to think about space, scale, construction, and community.
Little Masters Art
Through Georgia’s Eyes
Mix new colors: Children experiment with paints to create shades and compare what happens when colors are combined.
Paint a landscape: Inspired by Georgia O'Keeffe's attention to nature, children choose what to represent, including how a landscape might look from a tiny creature's perspective. The aim is exploration and expression, not matching a model.
What might this look like during a school day?
Imagine a Tuesday during the third week of April. Instead of spending the day talking about the books, children could be:
Using blocks and playdough to see whether the little pigs' wall holds together, changing their design when it doesn't.
Designing a table to fit Omu's neighbors, counting spaces and figuring out how to make it sturdy.
Mixing paints and experimenting with a landscape inspired by Georgia O'Keeffe, choosing the colors and perspective themselves.
Teachers introduce and revisit the books to give these experiences context, then support the construction, experimentation, cooperation, and discovery that follow. Children also have time to take materials in their own directions. This is one possible combination of curriculum experiences, not a prescribed Tuesday schedule.
Questions families ask about learning
These are actual projects from our Preschool and Junior K curriculum, explained in the context of their larger book studies. Select a question to see what children do, the skills that experience can support, how our teachers extend it, and a meaningful connection to try at home. These aren't exhaustive lists of everything in each study.
Reading and writing
Mathematics and science
Art and culture
The thinking behind our approach
Nebraska's Early Learning Guidelines describe learning across seven connected areas: Social & Emotional Development, Approaches to Learning, Health & Physical Development, Language & Literacy Development, Mathematics, Science, and Creative Arts. We use those areas to think about what children can learn from an experience; the Guidelines are not a script for what every child must do on a particular day.
The National Association for the Education of Young Children describes effective early teaching as a combination of purposeful environments, child-directed and guided play, and intentional adult instruction. A 2022 systematic review in Child Development found that guided play can support important areas of early learning, including mathematics and spatial reasoning. At Foundations, we bring this approach to life by combining meaningful hands-on experiences, purposeful teaching, and opportunities for children to explore their own ideas. Our teachers build on each child’s curiosity, introduce new challenges, and make connections across subjects, helping children develop knowledge and skills in ways that are engaging, developmentally appropriate, and responsive to their individual growth.
Keeping families involved
How we keep families connected
We want families to know more than whether a project was finished. We share what teachers offered, which books and materials were involved, and the vocabulary children were exploring. That gives you a starting point for conversations at home, while ongoing observation helps us understand what an individual child is actually learning.
Daily experiences in Brightwheel
In Brightwheel's Learning tab, families can see the specific Literature, Block Play and Little Masters experiences offered to their child's class. An activity record describes an opportunity that was available; it is not automatically an assessment that every child mastered the same skill. Families can ask about a concrete book, project or material and request more detail about their child's participation.
Vocabulary and developmental observations
Weekly vocabulary gives families a useful connection to current classroom experiences. Quarterly CDC milestone observations reflect what teachers consistently see at Foundations, and families are invited to contribute what they see at home. When a skill appears in one setting before the other, we compare observations and plan appropriate support rather than assuming something is wrong.
Children learn in different ways and on different timelines. We want families to see the thinking, relationships, and growth behind the experiences—not just a finished project on the wall. Our curriculum alignment was accepted by the Nebraska Department of Education for Step Up to Quality in October 2026.