Academic Programs

Our Academic program builds upon the strong communicative and cognitive skills developed in our Pre Academic program with a project based academic structure. This program is intended to facilitate learning in core knowledge areas such as Language Arts, Science, and Mathematics for typically developing children ages 3.5 to 7. Additionally, the academic component of our program allows us to transition those students from our therapeutic program into a neuro-typical classroom as soon as they demonstrate the readiness. These classes have a maximum of twelve students and last 2 hours and 45 minutes from 9:00 – 11:45. Beginning in the Academic Program, students have the option to stay for Extended Day classes from 12:00 – 3:00. Entrance into the academic classes is based upon testing, social maturity, age, and teacher recommendation. Parent/Teacher conferences happen three times a year in November, February, and June. The November conference reports on the goals and strengths of your student. The February conference gives a full report card with a skills checklist, curriculum overview, and student narrative. The conference in June will give us a chance to report on the pre and post Academic Tests and the students’ Academic progress throughout the year. Testing reports are sent home after the initial Academic Testing in the beginning of the year and the post Academic Testing at the end of the year.

Classes include:

Introduction to Kindergarten Ideas (IKI): This program begins at age 3.5. Children in this class are introduced to more structure and academics within the classroom through an experiential and multi-sensory learning approach. In this class, we begin to introduce these children to our formal curriculums. These curriculums include pre-literacy (Wright Skills), pre-writing (Handwriting Without Tears), and mathematics (Growing with Mathematics). Science and social studies lessons are based upon the weekly theme. Three half-days of attendance per week are required for this program.

Junior Kindergarten (JK): Students in this program must be 4 years of age by September 1st. The primary focus of this program is to establish a solid foundation of knowledge in key academic areas expected in kindergarten programs. Formal curriculums in this class include reading (Breakthrough to Literacy-Kindergarten level), pre-writing (Handwriting Without Tears), and mathematics (Everyday Mathematics). Science and social studies are based upon the weekly theme. Five half-days of attendance per week are required. Participation in extended day is encouraged.

Senior Kindergarten (SK): Students in this program must be 5 years of age by September 1st. The curriculum focus in this class is more academic and traditional. Students continue their work in the core knowledge areas, in addition to being introduced to pragmatic approaches to problem solving and continued focus on their social development. Formal curriculums in this class include reading (Breakthrough to Literacy – First Grade level), handwriting (Handwriting Without Tears), mathematics (Everyday Mathematics), and science (FOSS Science). Writing and Social Studies are based upon the weekly theme. Five half-days of attendance per week are required. Participation in extended day is strongly encouraged.

Extended Day (ED): Children 3 through 7 years of age are eligible to sign-up for our afternoon extended day program. In this program students stay for lunch at 12:00 and have two, one hour classes following, at 1:00 and 2:00. Extended Day course work includes academic rotation (focusing on mathematics, science, writing, and reading), physical education, integration of technology (work with smart board, iPads, and computers), and fine arts (art, music, dance, and theater). Parents can choose to sign-up for one through five days of extended day.

Afternoon Elective Classes: Afternoon Elective classes are offered outside of the Extended Program for students ages 2.5 and up that are not ready for a full day of school but would like to participate in afternoon classes. Students that are in class in the morning have the option of staying for 12:00 lunch and then a 1:00 class. Students that do not attend in the morning can come to Black Bear for a one hour class at 1:00 or 2:00. Classes change each semester so please refer to this website or call Annie Hernandez at our front desk for elective class information.

Academic Tutoring: By appointment only and for students requiring additional support for academic success in a variety of areas. Tutoring sessions are taught by a certified teacher and are offered for students pre-k through eighth grade. Students receiving speech therapy may also receive tutoring services through Black Bear if determined to have therapeutic value and recommended by the treating Speech-Language Pathologist.

Pre Academic Programs

Our Pre Academic program refers to children from 18 months to 4.0 years of age that are typically developing. In this program your child’s play is facilitated by our instructors to increase developmental readiness for future developmental, academic, and social milestones by improving language skills, increasing core vocabulary, and facilitating healthy neurological maturation.

Classes for the Pre Academic program include:

18-30 Month – 18 months old at the time of enrollment.

This class is 75 minutes and is offered from 8:45 to 10:00. Most parents register for 2-3 classes per week. Classes missed can be made-up, but only if a space is available. Our teachers all have four year degrees in applicable studies and most have their Early Childhood Education degree.

Our primary goal for this group can be summarized by the following goals related to skill sets:

Increase ability to participate in a structured, but play-based, setting.
Increase ability to confidently separate from Mommy and Daddy and fully participate in fun and engaging activities without worry or concern.
Increase language skills by building a greater core vocabulary typically using nouns and core phrases such as “I want…”, “More_____, please.”
Begin to establish confidence in early language skills, ideas such as cause and effect, verbal negotiation, and early primary knowledge such as colors, numbers, environmental sound identification, large motor skills related to class songs and music, social peer awareness and parallel play, and expression of self to others.
Expand “time on task” skills to support greater sustained attention
Encourage task persistence for novel play and other directed activities.
Through play-based activities, begin to increase body awareness and body confidence through gross motor (large muscle) activities that encourage greater coordination, timed and sequential movement to music, and skill exploration in a park or our gym setting.
Facilitate consistent use of language in a variety of contexts with a variety of staff members.
Develop a healthy participation in play activities.
Develop a sense of pride at accomplishments through teacher modeling.
Begin to facilitate the child’s ability to label their emotions and verbally (versus physically) negotiate the world.

Two-Hour or Three-Hour 2s – 2 years old

This class is two or three hours and is offered from 10:15 to 12:15 or 9:00 to 12:00. Most parents with 2 year olds register for 2-4 classes per week. Classes missed can be made-up, but only if a space is available. Our teachers all have four year degrees in applicable studies and most have their Early Childhood Education degree.

Our primary focus for this group can be summarized by the following goals related to skill sets:

Increase ability to participate in a structured, but play-based, setting.
Increase ability to confidently separate from Mommy and Daddy and fully participate in fun and engaging activities without worry or concern
Increase language skills by building a greater vocabulary, increase the grammatical complexity of language structure, and include more adjectives, verbs and early conceptual language vocabulary.
Begin to establish early foundation skills in core knowledge areas such as colors, letters, numbers, phonemic awareness as a precursor to pre-literacy tasks in the 3s Program, large motor skill sets as an early precursor to pre-writing skills in the 3s Program, social boundaries, peer awareness and parallel play, and expression of self to others.
Expand “time on task” skills to support greater sustained attention.
Encourage task persistence for novel play and other directed activities.
Through play-based activities, begin to increase body awareness and body confidence through gross motor (large muscle) activities that encourage greater coordination, timed and sequential movement to music and skill exploration in a park or our gym setting.
Challenge mastery of skill sets in a variety of contexts with a variety of staff members.
Develop a healthy regard for learning and exploration of ideas
Support the idea of character and friendship through teacher modeling.
Begin to facilitate the child’s ability to label their emotions and verbally (versus physically) negotiate the world.

Three-Hour 3s – 3 –4 years old

This class is three hours and is offered from 9:00 to 12:00. Most parents with these 3 year olds register for 3-4 classes per week for early 3s and 4-5 classes per week for late 3s.

The student number is increased to more accurately reflect the class sizes that you may find at your next academic stop. Classes missed can be made-up, but only if a space is available. This class has the Extended Day option, but please remember that they operate on two different schedules. Our teachers all have four year degrees in applicable studies and most have their Early Childhood Education degree.

Our primary focus for this group can be summarized by the following goals related to skill sets:

Increase ability to participate in a structured, project-based setting
Increase ability to confidently and fully participate in fun and engaging activities without worry or concern and in a more independent manner.
Increase language skills by building a greater vocabulary, increase the grammatical complexity of language structure, include more adjectives, verbs and early conceptual language vocabulary, increase storytelling and re-telling skills.
Begin to implement early foundation skills in core knowledge areas such as colors, letters, numbers, phonemic awareness, and layer experiential knowledge in a more structured way.
Continue to develop large motor skill sets as fine motor skills for both pre-writing and writing skills become a greater academic focus.
Development of greater awareness and differentiation related to social boundaries, peer awareness, cooperative play, and expression of self to others.
Expand “time on task” skills to support greater sustained attention. Begin “project” based learning to support delayed gratification, task persistence, temporal awareness, and early executive function skills.
Encourage task persistence for novel play and other directed activities.
Through play-based activities, begin to increase body awareness and body confidence through gross motor (large muscle) activities that encourage greater coordination, timed and sequential movement to music, and skill exploration in a park or our gym setting.
Begin to develop students’ ability to participate in structured games, with rules, and winners and losers.
Challenge mastery of skill sets in a variety of contexts with a variety of staff members
Develop a healthy regard for learning and exploration of ideas, facilitate self-initiated learning through activities where intrinsic motivation is noted
Support the idea of character, responsible participation, honesty, and friendship through teacher modeling.
Begin to facilitate the child’s ability to discuss their experiences with others, including ideas, opinions, and questions related to what “may occur” and “what’s possible”.

Therapeutic Programs

Black Bear Academy is a highly specialized, dynamic, private clinical program. We offer therapeutic classes, small group therapies, dyads, individual therapies and enrichments to address communication, feeding, independence, or delays and disorders related to, but not exclusively:

oral motor/feeding
sensory regulation
receptive/expressive language
social skills/pragmatic language skills
articulation/speech production
motor coordination/planning
fine motor skills
executive functioning skills
separation/transitioning

Our therapeutic preschool classes are taught by licensed Speech-Language Pathologists (SLP) and Occupational Therapists (OT) and we offer small therapist-to-student ratios.

Enrollment in the therapeutic program requires a full-complex evaluation by an SLP, OT or both. Evaluation needs will be determined and recommended after meeting and discussing this with each family.

The therapeutic program at Black Bear Academy is recommendation based and proposed schedules are shared and discussed with each family. Recommendations and schedules are based on the results of these comprehensive evaluations.

An initial family conference is held after the evaluations are completed at the entrance into the program. Update conferences are held approximately every 15 weeks to review progress towards goals and review re-evaluation information.

Classes are scheduled as they are recommended and therefore all classes may not be offered during all semesters. Also, they fill up as interest is indicated so they may not be offered each day of the week. Classes are subject to change as we are always willing to adjust and modify according to each child’s needs, each child’s age, and skills.

In the therapeutic program, it is not mandatory to attend a predetermined amount of days; however, it may be mandatory to participate in at least one individual therapy session to treat the child’s primary area of need, in addition to class, to ensure his or her individual needs are being met and improving in the group. Therapists make recommendations for therapeutic service provisions at Black Bear based on a combination of both individual and group experiences. This is an integral component to the success of our program.

We are not in-network with any insurance companies and we require payment for services rendered at the time of service and when the tuition installments are scheduled. However, we are happy to provide you with information you may need to pursue out-of-network coverage. Please contact our office manager for more information.

We are happy to consult with any outside providers your child may also have. Please fill out a consent form (release of information) with their names and contact information.

Classes are offered for different age groups and skill sets. We start as early as 18 months old and end at the Kindergarten level. If it is recommended that your child receive enrichment 1:1 support to participate in the class, including therapeutic classes, extended day classes and electives, there is an additional cost. Therapeutic classes and services can include:

Therapeutic Play: Therapeutic play is a 75 minute, theme-based class for children 18 months until approximately 2.5 years of age. It consists of activities such as free play, circle time, art, music, snack, speech-language center and story.
Language Play: This therapeutic class is 60 minutes long and loosely follows the theme and the intents of therapeutic classes; however, it is an opportunity for child-led play and interactions in an engaging less-confrontational environment. This provides students the time they need to work on separation, endurance and tolerance for structured activities. This class participates in activities such as free play, sensory-motor play, art play, snack, language play and story.
Intro to Therapeutic Preschool: Intro to TPS is a 2 hour, theme-based class for children above 2.5 years of age, and dependent on skills. The therapeutic class consistsof free play, morning work, circle time, speech-language centers, music, movement, possible outdoor activities, snack, and story.
Therapeutic Preschool: This therapeutic classes is curriculum-based for children above 3.5 years of age, and is dependent upon skills. This therapeutic class is 3 hours long and consists of free play, circle time, academic and speech-language centers, art, music, movement, possible outdoor activities, snack, and story. The TPS program can be split into two classes, Jr. TPS and Sr. TPS, depending on the levels of support needed and the levels of regulation, academic readiness, language and social skills of the group.
Learning and Engagement: This therapeutic class is designed to target a variety of skills unique to each child. This class provides specialized support for each child to enhance attention, engagement, regulation, participation, learning and communication at the level of each individual child.
Therapeutic Kindergarten: This therapeutic class is designed to target a variety of skills unique to each child as they get older and get ready to transition to another school. With varying levels of support, we continue to work on sustaining attention, engagement, regulation, participation, learning and communication in a small group experience while following a curriculum map and promoting academic and social readiness for transition.
Kindergarten Prep/and Transition: This three hour program is designed to prepare children for their next academic step, to transition into a private or public school for Kindergarten or first grade. This therapeutic class will prepare students for eventual opportunities to push-in, combine and/or transition into less supportive environments, which are maximized throughout the year. Levels of support are incumbent upon performance and readiness. Curriculums are incorporated including pre-literacy, pre-writing, literacy based mathematics, and thematic science and social study approach. Daily computer tasks are also introduced as part of this program. *Academic testing is required to gather baseline and progress information.
Social Language: This one or two hour class is led by an SLP and focuses on appropriate demonstration of social-pragmatic language and play skills in a small, supported group context.
Fine Motor: This one hour class is led by an OT and focuses on fine motor and related skills to support academic readiness through with use of various supports and multi-sensory activities in a small, supported group context.
Black Bear Buddies: This 30 or 60 minute dyad, led by an SLP, pairs a child with lagging skills with a neuro-typical peer, to work on improved play and social-pragmatic language skills.
Individual Therapy: Our SLP and OT staff provide 1:1 sessions that are 45 minutes of direct service, targeting individual goals as determined through the evaluation process and by clinical observations made in class.
Caregiver Training:We are available to meet to discuss strategies for any child that attends our school in any of our Pre-Academic, Academic or Therapeutic Programs.
Therapeutic Enrichment: Our therapeutic enrichment (TXE) staff is trained to supplement our clinical services in both groups and individual sessions. Also, if a child would benefit from 1:1 support to participate in a group setting, we will recommend and utilize our therapeutic enrichment staff accordingly to support our students.
Therapeutic Lunch/Gym:A therapeutic enrichment staff member are available to provide individualized support (1:1) for a child to safely and appropriately eat lunch in the lunchroom (30 minutes) and play in the gym (30 minutes) with age matched peers.
Lunch Bunch: This group will sit among age matched peers in the lunch room and will safely and appropriately eat lunch with facilitation by a therapeutic enrichment staff member. They will work on focusing on eating and socializing and demonstrating increasing independence and attention.
Kids in Transition: Kids In Transition, or “KIT”, is an outreach program offered through Black Bear Academy. Our clinical staff can provide on-site and off-site consultative services for children who are dually enrolled or for students after enrollment at Black Bear. This partnership program can serve as an important tool to help successfully transition children across learning environments. If available and able to coordinate scheduling and transportation, SLP/OT consultation for indirect services (i.e. providing materials, scheduling phone calls, emails, observations, teacher collaboration, meetings, tours, etc.) is available at the current consultative rate. IEP Consultations and School Observations (off-site) are provided upon request. For more information, please go to our Kids in Transition page.

Another Reason to Love Black Bear!

Extended Day Programs

Should you choose to, additional course work is available in the mornings and afternoons by joining our ED Program. This allows for parents to choose a half-day or full day program or a one hour morning class for your Lil’ Guy!

ED course work includes:

Academic Rotation (focusing on Math, Science, Handwriting and Literacy)

Physical Education, Cooking, Sports, Fine Arts, Yoga, Dance, Language Play, Heave Ho and so much more!

Morning and Afternoon

Academy Arts

Summer Camp

Summer camp is theme-based for campers 3 years of age and up. Campers will enjoy the following per week; a field trip, a guest visitor, two camp-wide events held at Black Bear, and a beach day!

Along with Camp, we also offer various summer classes and sessions. Find more information for the Summer Semester in Enrollment.

"Kids in Transition" Program

Kids In Transition, or “KIT”, is an outreach program offered through Black Bear Academy, created to support a student’s success as they make the transition between the preschool and elementary academic settings, larger class sizes and greater ratios between students and staff.

The KIT program views transition as a team process versus a one-time event. We acknowledge the importance of building strong partnerships between educators and institutions in the academic arena and we desire to build strong, mutually beneficial relationships. Our hope is that these partnerships can facilitate opportunities for the continuing education and mentorship of staff and to facilitate a comprehensive understanding of the child and their individual needs. We hope to help accomplish this with open communication about supportive strategies and classroom modifications that work and benefit not only Black Bear alumni but each child, each educator, each school, each program, in each community. Through a variety of continuing education activities, classroom observations, ongoing communication and mentoring, our partnership will help meet the needs of each child, their families, teachers, and external service providers. This helps to ensure continuity of care, fosters progress and supports all involved.

Black Bear Academy is a unique program designed to support each child’s individual developmental and neurological maturation from birth through kindergarten. The program is designed to optimize developmental readiness for future developmental, academic, and social milestones by improving language skills, increasing core vocabulary, and facilitating healthy neurological maturation. We have three in-house programs: we offer a Therapeutic Program, our Academic Program for typically developing students and our Language Enrichment program for the Lil’ Guys beginning at 18 months. We design our programs around each child’s individual needs and provide a stimulating, multi-modal, learning environment without pre-set limits on what’s “possible”.

KIT Mission Statement:

To support the understanding of the individual needs of every child in a way that will facilitate effective teams, optimal growth, development, learning and ultimately, success, regardless of the academic settings and challenges.

We are . . .Speech-Language Pathologists, Occupational Therapists, Special Educators, Therapeutic Enrichment, Administrators, Early childhood Educators and Academic Teachers.

We have… a unique understanding of children as individuals who develop in unique ways as they learn and mature.

We have… become experts at understanding their individual learning styles, and ways to optimize their ability to learn in a classroom setting.

We will… help our educational partners to know our students, individually, and we will use this to our advantage to support them as they pursue teaching excellence for each student in their new academic contexts.

We will . . .support and assist educators to understand the global considerations surrounding a child’s learning style and/or learning differences.

We will…support our Partnership Programs to better understand the academic challenges inherent in the classroom and offer strategies and modifications which will lead to greater success.

We will…offer staffing solutions, whether short-term or longer term, that will allow for “Kids in Transition” to adjust to their new school, their new classroom, their new teacher, in a manner that takes into account their history, their strengths and their challenges.

We will…provide Educators and Administrators with information and training that will lead to greater success and community team building.

We will…provide our Partnership Programs with the essential tools necessary to modify, revise, and enhance the classroom environment, the learning experience, the presentation of information in ways that can address learning differences.

We are Black Bear Academy.

We are… growing, learning, succeeding!

info1718@blackbearacademy.com

koglesbee@blackbearacademy.com

Katie Oglesbee, M.S., CCC-SLP Director of Therapeutic Programs

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KIT Services 2016-2017