Christ Academy prepares kids for kindergarten

WICHITA FALLS, Texas (KAUZ) - When you think about three and four-year-olds going to school, you might imagine more of a daycare environment, but all it takes is one step into the three and four-year-old room to see that is far from the experience at Christ Academy.

Full of core classes like language arts, science and math, the three and four-year-old classes at Christ Academy are focused on getting little ones, like Rand, kindergarten ready.

Rand’s mom said she knew the private school was a good fit for her family when she saw the curriculum and the way teachers focus on each child.

“Having an education background, my number one priority for him was just simply to fall in love with learning,” Taylor Wachsman, Rand’s mom, said.

Believe it or not, they even practice public speaking in the classroom.

“You’ll have the shyest child at the beginning of the year and we don’t push them to do it but they sit and watch and after they’ve watched for a month, six weeks, they’re begging you to come do it because they realize this is okay, this is a safe environment to do this in,” Karie Levell, early childhood division head and teacher, said.

And while the academic curriculum is strong, the Bible curriculum and chapel are equally important.

“One of the key benefits of having your child enrolled in Christ Academy is that we take full advantage of the freedom that we have within our walls to speak about Jesus on a daily basis, and to bring that into our curriculum as well,” Levell said.

Levell has been teaching at the school for 23 years and says making it all come together with three and four-year-olds has a lot to do with experience, hands-on activities and small class sizes.

While the academic curriculum is strong, the Bible curriculum and chapel are equally important to the school.

“I just love when their eyes light up, ‘oh I know that story, that’s goliath, he did it, David is little and I’m little and I can do big things because I’m little and you said we could’ and they believe you,” Levell said. “So that also is a high calling because they believe everything I say, so I’m responsible for what I say to them.”

“We asked him in the car ‘what is your favorite thing about school, lunch, preschool, what’s your favorite thing?’ Without a doubt, he said ‘mom, that’s easy, it’s chapel.’ And that right there alone, that answer of how confident he was in that answer, meant so much to us that they made it that exciting and that was really special,” Wachsman said.

Something else that sets Christ Academy apart is three and four-year-olds can take part in a tennis academy, take piano lessons and starting next year, can even join the pep squad.

Copyright 2023 KAUZ. All rights reserved.