For parents who desire for their children to ease into the elementary school experience gradually, Westminster offers a preschool program for three- and four-year-olds. The Pre-K3 program meets on Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 8:00-12:00, and the Pre-K4 program meets on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at the same time.

Three-year-old children can still be very immature physically, socially, and emotionally. This fact is substantiated by our years of experience working with very young children in the preschool setting. Based upon our extensive familiarity with this age group, Westminster observes special policies regarding the acceptance of children into our Pre-K3 program. Students must have reached their third birthday by June 1 of the year they wish to apply for the class. Students must also be completely toilet trained before they may begin attending preschool. This benchmark is signified by the fact that a child no longer wears training pants, either disposable or non-disposable, at all during the day. We understand that at the time of application a preschooler may not be completely trained, yet the parent anticipates that by the time the school year begins, he or she will have mastered the process. Westminster will accept a student who is in the process of training, but the acceptance is subject to reversal if, by the beginning of the school year, the child has not become completely trained. In cases where the class is approaching its maximum size limit, a child who is in the process of training may not hold a slot if a child who is already completely trained also applies.

Students who will reach their fourth birthday by September 1 may apply for the Pre-K4 class. Parents should note that children whose birthdays fall during the summer occasionally do not reach an acceptable level of maturity by the end of the school year to be recommended for kindergarten the following year. If a student fits this description, the preschool teacher will begin communicating this concern well before the end of the Pre-K4 year.

Westminster’s preschool is a teacher-based, child-directed classroom. During scheduled activity times, the children develop skills through exploring various learning centers. For example, in the art center many different skills are being taught at once. There are cognitive skills (learning colors, shapes, sizes), fine motor skills (holding the paintbrush, crayon, or marker, cutting with scissors, squeezing the glue bottle), gross motor skills (they are required to get all these things off the shelf themselves and return it when finished), pre-math skills (adding, sequencing, patterning), pre-reading skills (recognizing their name on a paper, writing their name), and social skills (as they talk to each other). Every area in the classroom is focused on enhancing these different skills and thereby encouraging learning through play.

There are also scheduled class times when the children are required to sit in their seats. During these times, the children may discuss unit studies, sing songs, or read stories. These seated activities help prepare the children for a more formal classroom setting in kindergarten.

The preschool curriculum is based on unit studies, topics that are covered for one to two weeks at a time. Class discussions, crafts, field trips, and special activities are centered on that unit. Along with unit studies, one color and one number are featured each month, so that by the end of the school year, every color and the numbers one through ten will have been covered. In the Pre-K4 program, the children will also learn the letters of the alphabet, covering a new letter and its sound each week. A favorite part of the day is "Jesus Time," with Bible stories and songs and a new memory verse each month.