HighScope is a research based early years curriculum that supports the idea that a child learns through hands-on activities. This method, learning by doing, allows children to grasp concepts more easily and retain the information for future use. 

Five important aspects of HighScope are

• Active Learning

• Daily Routine

• Language Curriculum

• Mathematics Curriculum

• Problem Solving Approach

The Five Ingredients of Active Learning

• Materials: the child must have access to a large variety of materials which will be used to expand their experiences and stimulate thought.
• Manipulation: the child must use the materials in a "hands on" manner to discover and create.
• Choice: children choose their materials and play partners and plan their activities according to their interests and needs.
• Child Language & Thought: children tell teachers and classmates what they are doing. They express 
• themselves verbally and non-verbally to show what they are thinking, learning, and understanding. 
• Adult Scaffolding: occurs when an adult inspires and challenges a child to advance to the next level of a skill or concept by encouraging the child to discover and find answers through critical thinking and problem solving.During the daily routine children spend the majority of their time in planned play with adults and peers. Research shows that it is during play that the majority of the child's true learning occurs which is why

The following is a description of the activities that occur on a typical day in a HighScope active learning environment

1. Plan-Do-Review (90 minutes) is an activity that provides structure and gives meaning to children's play. It is composed of the following four elements: 

2. Small Group Time(15 minutes) is a teacher-lead math or language activity. Each day the children will have two small group times, one in Arabic and one in English. Each teacher will meet with a group of ten children to work on a planned math or language activity. 
3. Large Group Time (10 minutes) is a teacher lead game, dramatic play or movement activity. This is an opportunity for children to participate in a large group setting where they can share their ideas with their friends and teachers and learn from each other. At large group time children play games, tell stories, sing songs, dance and put on plays or puppet shows. Large group time will give children an opportunity to be leaders.
4. Outside Time (35 minutes) where children and teachers play together. Children will spend time painting, building, digging, biking, splashing and swinging, individually or with peers on our non-traditional playground. This will enhance the development of their gross motor, cognitive and social skills. 

• phonological awareness
• alphabetic principle
• comprehension
• concepts about print

• Number Sense and Operations
• Geometry
• Measurement
• Algebra
• Data Analysis

• Fundamental Movement Concepts
• Spatial awareness & movement direction
• Locomotor Skills
• Manipulative Skills
• Body Management Skills
• Sample Movement Activities
• Boundaries, personal space, start/stop, near/far, left/right
• Hopping, jumping, walking, running
• Volleying, throwing, kicking, catching, dribbling, rolling
• Flexibility, balance, strength, coordination

At age three children are developmentally ready to explore computers. As "digital natives" children require minimal guidance from adults, they can learn to use a variety of tech tools simply by having access and time to experiment with them independently. Research states that children who use computers to reinforce the major objectives of their school curriculum have significant developmental gains in intelligence, verbal and non-verbal skills, structural knowledge, long term memory, manual dexterity, problem solving, abstraction and conceptual skills. Talat School will implement a child-centered, active learning approach to teach digital literacy by:

• Equipping technology interest areas in each classroom with laptops, tablets, digital cameras, scanners, and MP3 players.
• Integrating a project-based technology curriculum and selecting developmentally appropriate websites and software to support learning.
• Ensuring online safety by educating children on cyber ethics and installing filters and parental control software.
• Developing classroom websites and children's homepages to fuse technology education with other important curricula. For example, providing children access to e-journals supports the language curriculum, e-books and online reading logs on their homepages.
• Providing a state of the art news studio where children learn to use professional studio equipment to record and produce news segments for Talat News. 

In addition, Talat School is a member of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), which has developed a set of standards for learning, teaching, and leading in the digital age called the National Educational Technology Standard (NETS). ISTE believes that being able to use technology is no longer enough and that today's children need to be able to use technology to analyze, learn, and explore. Talat will integrate technology to support the following NETS categories:

• Communication and Collaboration
• Creativity and Innovation
• Critical Thinking
• Research and Information
• Digital Citizenship
• Technology Operation

• Reduce: Children will learn to reduce water, electricity and paper usage. They will understand the global shortage of clean water and learn how to conserve water through a variety of activities such as turning off the water when washing their hands and brushing their teeth. Children will learn how to conserve electricity by turning off electrical equipment such as tablets and laptops at the end of the day. They will realize that all paper products come from trees, which take an average of 25 to 30 years to grow.

• Reuse: Children will collect empty boxes, cans and water bottles to use for art projects, or as containers in their classroom. Each classroom will have scrap paper boxes for paper that can be reused. Reusing material that would otherwise be thrown away creates less waste and a cleaner environment.

• Recycle: Children will recycle paper, plastic and left over food. There will be paper and plastic recycling bins in each classroom. The lunchroom will have a food composter to recycle food scraps into soil fertilizer that will be used for gardening activities. By getting children actively involved in recycling they will better understand how they can make a positive difference in the environment.