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Ages 4 – 5

Pre-K

where kindergarten readiness is built

Pre-K is a pivotal year for building kindergarten readiness. We don't believe in trade-offs — our Pre-K kids are both ready and still get to be five. Phonics in the morning. Mud kitchen in the afternoon.

Grace's Pre-K is a private, preparatory Pre-K in Aledo — taught inside our private, family-owned preschool with the Frog Street curriculum and Aledo ISD–specific readiness. See how we prepare kids for kindergarten & beyond →

Tour the Pre-K room
Pre-K classroom at Grace Learning Tree
Grace Learning Tree’s Pre-Kindergarten program in Aledo, Texas serves children ages four and five. It uses the Frog Street Pre-K curriculumapproved by the Texas Education Agency and built to meet 100% of the Texas Prekindergarten Guidelines (perfect scores across all eleven Texas Resource Review categories), vertically mapped to the Texas Kindergarten TEKS. It’s a curriculum you can look up — see the TEA review. The program is intentionally shaped around what Aledo ISD kindergarten teachers expect: early literacy, number sense, name writing, listening skills, self-regulation, and social-emotional readiness. Children also keep building their first Spanish numbers and colors.
4–5
Years old
Low
Teacher : child ratio
5
School-readiness domains we build
26
Sight words we teach in Pre-K
a day in our room

Real academics, real play

Pre-K is the most academically rigorous room at Grace — but it's still preschool, not first grade. Joyful, hands-on, developmentally right.

7:00–8:30

Drop-off & soft start

Breakfast, journal entry (a sentence and a drawing), book browsing, free play with friends.

8:30–9:15

Morning meeting

Calendar, weather, helper of the day, daily theme, sharing time. Frog Street Pre-K curriculum drives the structure.

9:15–10:00

Phonics & literacy

Letter sounds, sight word work, decoding practice, name-writing every day. Letterland phonics layered with Frog Street.

10:00–10:30

Handwriting Without Tears

Formal letter formation, lowercase work, beginning sentence-writing on dotted lines. The HWT magic at its full strength.

10:30–11:00

Math centers

Counting to 30+, patterns, simple addition, shape work, measuring. Hands-on manipulatives — never worksheets at this age.

11:00–11:45

Outdoor play

Preschool playground — bikes, climbing, gardening, dramatic outdoor play, organized games.

11:45–12:30

Lunch together

Hot meals, child-sized tables, real conversations. Pre-K kids set their own places now and clear them after.

12:30–2:00

Rest & quiet time

Some still nap, some have a quiet hour with books or quiet activities. We don't force naps at this age.

2:00–2:30

Snack & read-aloud

Chapter book reading begins here. We can stretch their attention span 15-20 minutes for a great story.

2:30–3:00

Weekly Science

Real experiments — predictions, observations, recording results. The foundation of scientific thinking.

3:00–4:30

Extras, art, outdoor play

Soccer Shots, Birdie Buddies golf, music, project-based art, more outdoor time. The afternoon is for choice and exploration.

4:30–6:00

Wind-down & pickup

Free play, daily Brightwheel reports, sometimes a quick share-out of what they learned today.

curriculum at this age

What kindergarten-ready actually looks like

Not just letters and numbers. Behaviors, habits, and dispositions kindergarten teachers wish every kid arrived with.

🔤

Reading foundations

The pre-reading work that makes first grade possible. By June, most kids are decoding 3-letter words.

  • All 26 letter sounds taught and practiced
  • 26 sight words: a, the, I, see, like, can…
  • Decoding CVC words (cat, sun, big)
  • Reading their own name and friends' names
✏️

Writing

Handwriting and early sentence-writing are a daily focus.

  • HWT lowercase letters we teach
  • Writing their full name
  • Daily journal entry (sentence + drawing)
  • Beginning to write 2-3 word sentences
🔢

Math

Counting, comparing, simple addition. Kindergarten math is more advanced than parents expect — we get them ready.

  • Counting to 30+ accurately
  • Simple addition and subtraction
  • Shapes (2D and 3D)
  • Patterns and sorting
🔬

Science

Curiosity made systematic. They learn to predict, observe, and explain.

  • Weekly experiments
  • Seasonal observations
  • Plants, animals, weather, the body
  • Beginning to record observations in journals
🎯

Self-regulation

Sitting in a chair for 20 minutes. Listening to directions. Working independently. The unsexy kindergarten skills.

  • Following multi-step directions
  • Sustained attention 15-20 min
  • Managing transitions independently
  • Cleaning up their own space
❤️

Faith & character

Opt-in. Age-appropriate lessons in kindness, courage, gratitude, integrity. Aledo values, lived daily.

  • Weekly faith lesson
  • Service projects (food drives, etc.)
  • Modeling kindness and inclusion
  • Connection to Aledo community
growth markers

By the end of Pre-K, most children can…

Every child grows at their own pace. A real list of real skills. Kindergarten teachers tell us our kids arrive prepared.

Write their full nameFirst and last, capital and lowercase
Know all letter soundsUpper and lowercase, in random order
Read 26+ sight wordsInstantly, in or out of context
Count to 30Accurately, with one-to-one correspondence
Simple addition and subtractionWithin 5 using manipulatives
Identify all 2D shapesPlus basic 3D: cube, sphere, cylinder
Tell a story with beginning, middle, endVerbally and in journal drawings
Sit through a 20-minute lessonWith focus and follow-through
Work independentlyAt their seat, on a task, without prompting
Love learningThe most important readiness skill there is
our guiding principle
Low ratios

Texas allows up to 1:18 for four-year-olds. Low student-to-teacher ratios are the principle we build every room around — we enroll below the state maximum and keep it there whenever we can, because Pre-K is when individual attention pays off most: coaching writing, hearing them read, catching them up. Never a guaranteed number — always a philosophy of not maxing out.

Also useful: Daycare in Aledo — how Grace differs from a drop-in →

what's next

Kinder Bridge — the extra year that pays off

Many families choose to keep their child a year longer in our Kinder Bridge program — Grace's private transitional kindergarten in Aledo — before Aledo ISD kindergarten. It's not "behind." It's a strategic head start — full kindergarten academics, more time to mature, biggest social-emotional advantage.

In Pre-K, one steady teacher does more than any curriculum

By four and five, your child is learning phonics, sight words, journaling, kindergarten-level math. That kind of learning stacks best on top of one thing: an adult who knows them cold. From Preschool through Kinder Bridge, that's exactly what your child gets at Grace — one consistent teacher for the entire year. Someone who knows what motivates them, what shuts them down, and what they need on the hard days.

Harvard's National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, chaired by pediatrician Dr. Jack Shonkoff, puts it plainly:

“There is no scientific evidence to support the belief that frequently rotating relationships with large numbers of adult caregivers provide valuable learning opportunities in the early years of life.”

— Harvard National Scientific Council on the Developing Child

Programs that reshuffle children frequently have often rebranded a staffing problem as a "developmental benefit." It isn't. It's turnover with better marketing. Grace is a real place with real people — rare short-notice combines happen — but they stay rare because our teachers stay.

Read the fuller thinking on our Parks of Aledo page.

Come see how Pre-K actually works

Tour during a morning session. Watch a phonics lesson. See journal time. You'll understand exactly why our families don't leave.

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