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Lety’s Preschool and Daycare offers a unique Spanish Immersion program for families in the Truckee/North Lake Tahoe area.  Children are taught Spanish through various methods including games, activities and conversation.  We strive to ensure that children in our care will be fluent in both Spanish and English by the time that they enter kindergarten.

Families in our program are encouraged to be involved as much as their time allows.  We love to have parent volunteers come into the classroomand read to the children or play games. We provide a wide variety of activities and a large base of exposure as a guide for our children to grow and learn.

Our curriculum provides children with the skills they need to develop, grow, learn and have fun! This includes:

  • Art
  • Outdoor Play
  • Math
  • Special Events
  • Science
  • Language Arts
  • Movement
  • Sensory Activities

Each of these daily activities gives your child the skills they need to expand their language, coordination, become self aware and most importantly create lasting friendships.

Programs

At Lety’s Preschool and Daycare your child will enjoy a day filled with fun, learning, and new discoveries. Children learn best when they regulate their own environment, making discoveries and integrating the knowledge they gain into their life.

Lety’s Preschool and Daycare offers a full foreign language immersion program that is unique to the Truckee North Tahoe region.  While some childcare centers and preschools offer a foreign language component as part of their curriculum, Lety’s Preschool is unique in that all children spend all of their day learning in Spanish language.

We deliberately chose to invite infant, toddler, and young preschoolers into a shared environment to promote and facilitate a number of developmental and learning objectives.  Relationships developed with children from outside the home enhance their communication skills and ability to behave effectively in a group setting.

Our program includes reading stories, offering arts, crafts, and other projects, monitoring socialization and motor skill development, and leading the children to the next step of their early childhood development. Our enriched and varied physical activity and exciting projects ensure that your child also develops strong coordination, values physical and nutritional health, becomes self-aware and creates friendships.

Spanish Immersion

Most of the children attending Lety’s Preschool and Daycare are native English speakers and therefore, the majority of our students are in a foreign language environment.

Language immersion programs are associated with proficiency in childrens’ second and home language as well as improved self-esteem and cross-cultural attitudes.  Impressively, we have had a number of children who have been learning Spanish as their third language.

While the children are frequently heard conversing between themselves in English, the teachers speak Spanish to all children at all times.  We use numerous contextual factors in second language acquisition including Spanish labels on classroom and play objects as well as Spanish music and books.

Experts in learning foreign languages stress the numerous benefits of learning a foreign language at an early age:

  • When children learn multiple languages at a young age, they develop a life-long love of communicating with others.
  • By incorporating foreign languages in a schools curriculum, children develop a greater appreciation for diversity.
  • When young children learn about the structure of other languages, their ability in English is enhanced.
  • Because the brain automatically compartmentalizes each language correctly, young children have the ability to learn many languages without getting them confused.
  • When children learn a second language at an early age, they will achieve a more native grasp of both grammar and pronunciation in the second language.
  • Lety’s Preschool and Daycare understands that many of our parents may not be Spanish speakers and because of this our lead teacher, Leticia Aguilar, is fluent in English.  Her ability to fluently speak both languages and familiarity with the immersion language education theory allows her to provide a warm and welcoming environment to all family and community members.
Family

Lety’s Preschool and Daycare considers family involvement and collaboration an important component of an effective program.  When parents are involved at school, they often develop a sense of efficacy that is communicated to children with positive academic consequences.

Parent and family participation is expected and encouraged. Parents, grandparents, and other family or friends can sign up to come and read to the children (in English or Spanish) at two different times during the day.  Parents are encouraged to join the children and lead them in making arts and crafts.

Lety’s Preschool and Daycare offers a number of different family based events happening throughout the year.  These events allow family members to develop relationships and enhance their children’s friendships outside of school.  It has also been common for parents to come and volunteer their time and or resources to continue to improve the children’s playground.

Teaching

Lety’s Preschool and Daycare promotes an equitable positive learning environment through a warm and caring community that treats each child with fairness and lack of prejudice.

Ensuring this learning atmosphere requires small teacher to student ratio.  Therefore, we staff at higher than required levels with 2 to 3 teachers per 14 children.

Lety’s Preschool and Daycare believes in always challenging our teachers and staff to improve teaching and child care skills.  We invite regular site visits, teacher training and off-site observation.  All of our staff participates in ongoing training through taking various seminars, college classes, and education and child care workshops.

We regularly operate as a training site for future teachers and educators providing us with an opportunity to reflect on our own methods and procedures through instruction of others. Our lead teacher, Leticia Aguilar, has received training in language education pedagogy and curriculum, materials and resources.