Tender Shepherd Preschool at The Bible Chapel was started in 1997 to provide a Christian, developmentally‑appropriate preschool for the children of our church family and the surrounding communities. We believe that children are a gift from God and are uniquely and specially designed by Him. In addition, we have observed throughout our 20 years of existence that children thrive when they have a secure understanding of who they are in God’s eyes and of His unconditional love for them. Consequently, we integrate and reinforce Biblical truths in their everyday learning experiences. Our goal is to help children develop physically, spiritually, socially and cognitively in a Christ-centered environment.
Curriculum - Our biblically‑based curriculum allows our teachers to reinforce important biblical truths because each child has been designed and created by a loving God. Through our units of study in the classroom and chapel time, we encourage an understanding of who God is and His unconditional love for us through Jesus Christ.
Our curriculum includes stories and verses from the Bible with each unit of academic study. In addition, all of our holiday parties are Christ centered; for example, we celebrate Thanksgiving by focusing on thanking God for His incredible blessings, love and care for us. Christmas is focused on the birth of Jesus together with a birthday party for Jesus. Easter is focused on Jesus’ unconditional love, forgiveness and His glorious resurrection. We believe that it is in the preschool years that critical values, self-esteem concepts and character are formed in a child’s life. We consider it a privilege to be able to guide these young lives entrusted to us and instill these important values into their lives during the important preschool years.
Physical Education - We recognize that physical education is an essential element in a child’s education. We provide many opportunities during their preschool day to encourage the acquisition of small and large muscle motor skills. We have a large, safe, and beautiful playground just outside Tender Shepherd Preschool for the children to play during the Fall and Spring. We are able to use our premises to take walks during the day to observe the signs of each season in nature. The children are able to appreciate God’s magnificent creation right outside our classrooms. The playground provides an opportunity for daily large muscle time for the children, which is a very important component of childhood development. Tender Shepherd Preschool is also blessed with a large gym with educational play equipment to provide daily large muscle activity for the children during those times and seasons where outdoor activity is not possible.
Tender Shepherd Preschool also focuses on many hands‑on activities to help develop fine motor skills. A plethora of structured activities are available in the classroom to facilitate not only the development of fine motor skills, but also promote and encourage intellectual development and problem‑solving skills. As an example, we encourage the children to use their imagination to create by providing them with a variety of custom craft supplies, but avoiding the use of precut crafts that end on a pre‑determined final product. Consequently, the children are stimulated to be creative with their artistic abilities and imagination using our custom crafts to create a variety of final products that both showcase and encourage their imaginative and creative abilities. We emphasize the process rather than the product.
We have introduced a sign language and foreign language class for the older preschool classes to widen their experiences. It is amazing how the children absorb the songs and signs from these classes. They will get an opportunity to showcase what they have learned from these classes at their graduation ceremony.
Parental Involvement – At Tender Shepherd Preschool, we value the involvement of the parents with the school. Since our inception, we have maintained an open door policy where we welcome parents to be present as a volunteer in their child’s classroom, if they should so desire. They are also provided with dedicated events that are organized solely for this purpose. At the serious end of the spectrum of such events is the Parent-Teacher conference where parents can discuss their child’s progress with his/her teachers. At the lighter end of this spectrum is the event termed ‘Pajama Day,’ where the children and teachers attend preschool on that day in their pajamas! The children help the teachers cook a hot breakfast and then enjoy it with their friends. It also subtly teaches them the importance of helping their moms with cooking, clean up, and other household chores that mothers routinely perform by themselves. Over the years we have had an increasing number of mothers be a part of this event and help us out to make this a fun time for all.
Another event for parental involvement is our beautiful Mother’s Day celebration where the children make special crafts and sing songs about their appreciation and love for their mothers. It is invariably a very meaningful and emotional time as the children show their gratitude to their mother’s love and care. Needless to say, facial tissues are available in plenty as there is rarely a dry eye at these events! Based on the success of our Mother’s Day celebration, we also introduced a Dad’s Day. If dad is not available, children are encouraged to bring another adult. This day has blossomed into a very special day as well. Fathers look forward to spending time with their children in their classrooms, observing, and being a part of all that they do during a typical day at preschool. A delicious breakfast is served to everyone on these days after the children have made their crafts and sung their songs.
Security - In today’s environment, safety is a critical matter in any establishment, least of all a preschool. Being a part of The Bible Chapel, we are blessed to enjoy the benefits of a security team and maintenance personnel. The Chapel’s state of the art security system has security cameras placed strategically throughout both the interior and exterior of all its buildings, including those used by Tender Shepherd Preschool. The doors of our hallways are locked during class hours so that no one may enter without checking in at the main office. Also, all of our teachers and staff have been trained in the ALICE program, which is an emergency preparedness program used by public schools and many large organizations.
It has been an honor and a privilege to be an amazing educational environment where we have been able to stay the course and be true to our mission for all these years. It has been a blessing to reach out to so many families over the past 20 years. Our desire is to help children to walk into kindergarten or their next class with confidence. We strive to make our preschoolers first school experience a positive one and instill a love for life-long learning in them.
Outreach
We believe it is important to teach young children to give back and think of those in need and to serve others. In the past we have collected gifts to send to needy children through Samaritan’s Purse, have contributed school supplies to children in Sri Lanka and Panama, collected baby supplies for the Crisis Pregnancy Center, food for the Peters Township food pantry and hygiene supplies for Light of Light Mission in Pittsburgh. The children have also baked cookies in class for the maintenance staff to show our appreciation for taking care of our premises. It was meaningful for the children to provide food supplies for a firefighter’s family that had lost everything when the fireman was away on duty fighting another fire.
For Parents
We at Tender Shepherd Preschool care about the whole family. The Bible Chapel offers many classes on parenting, marriage and Bible studies for men and women, and Moms Together Ministry. Childcare is provided for all these classes. It is important that we are able to leave a lasting legacy with our children and be the parents that God wants us to be in our families. We cannot do this on our own; we need one another. Tender Shepherd Preschool is thrilled to partner with parents to teach and direct children in God’s ways. You may check out our website, biblechapel.org for registration information. In addition there are activities for men, women, young adults, teenagers and children of all ages every Wednesday night at The Bible Chapel.
We are in the process of registering students for the 2018-2019 school year, and this year we are pleased to announce that we are opening locations at our Robinson and Wilkinsburg locations as well. For information about Tender Shepherd Preschool please visit our website at http://www.biblechapel.org/preschool/
Registration forms are available online. If you would like a tour of our Preschool or if you would like more information, please call 724-941-8990.
