Courtyard School offers a full day Kindergarten which includes before and after school care...a great benefit for both students and parents.
- 6:30 am – 8:30 am Before school program
- 8:30 am – 3:00 pm Kindergarten class meets
- 3:00 pm – 6:00 pm After school program
The extra hours in the Kindergarten class provide our youngest students more opportunities to gain reading, writing and math skills; experience visual and performing arts; learn Spanish; participate in physical education; and have a lot more fun.
The Kindergarten students may also participate in our enriching before school and after school programs where they can enjoy arts and crafts, introductory sports including basketball, cooking classes, dance classes, and many others.
Parents find our complete Kindergarten program very convenient. While parents are working, their children are receiving an excellent education while participating in a variety of enriching activities which are located right on Courtyard’s convenient Midtown campus. This saves parents from having to leave work to shuttle their kids from school to their after-school activities.
Diane Gross, Kindergarten (email link)
A Courtyard institution for 17 years, Ms. Diane helps children make the critical transition from being the center of everyone else's world to cooperating as kind, considerate classmates, students and friends. As any visitor to her classroom can attest, she teaches as though she's got eyes in the back of her head, gracefully channeling the enthusiasm of a passel of five-year-olds, responding to all questions and comments with humor and patience -- all the while maintaining the momentum of fundamental lessons.
Ms. Diane teaches her kindergarteners to read and to use a variety of techniques to add and subtract. Her students explore the world at large -- rainforests, deserts, continents, oceans -- as they master these basic lessons.
With an English degree and teaching credentials from the University of California, Davis, Ms. Diane also earned a master's degree in education (with an emphasis on language and literacy) from California State University, Sacramento. She started at Courtyard as an extended day leader.
Ms. Diane owns two oversized dogs, Manny and Sylvia, who are occasionally the subject of kindergarten homework assignments. She and her husband David are enthusiastic hikers, skiers and cyclists.
"As opposed to public schools with mandated curriculum where teachers are being forced to teach everyone the same way, we are able to better meet the various needs of students by using the standards but incorporating them into our classrooms to fit each individual student’s needs – basically, do what works."
Call Courtyard School at 916-442-5395 to schedule a tour and see all that Courtyard has to offer your child!
