Andrea Johnson/MDN Tiffany Miller, owner of Bountiful Preschool, plays with her son, Killian, 4, in her classroom at Bethany Lutheran Church. Killian will be attending the preschool.

Tiffany Miller has moved her Bountiful Preschool to the Bethany Lutheran Church in downtown Minot, which offers a central location and will enable her to expand programming.

Kids in the preschool, including her own 4-year-old son, Killian, will benefit from regular art and music lessons, along with play-centered academics including games, songs and finger plays.

“They don’t sense it as learning,” said Miller. “They just sense a whole lot of fun.”

Miller is still registering students for the preschool, which will begin classes on Sept. 4.

A morning and an afternoon session of preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds will be offered on Tuesdays and Thursdays. A morning and afternoon session of pre-kindergarten, for kids who will start kindergarten next year, will be held Monday, Wednesday and Fridays. The morning session will run from 9 a.m. to noon. The afternoon session will run from 12:20 to 3:20 p.m.

Tuition is $190 per month for preschool and $240 per month for pre-kindergarten.

More information is available online at www.bountifulpreschool.com or on Facebook at Bountiful Preschool.

Miller said she is also incorporating the best pieces of educational approaches such as Montessori and Waldorf education.

Like Montessori, kids will learn by doing and gain mastery over their environment. As in a Waldorf preschool, kids will learn from the gradual changing of the seasons and the rhythms of the earth. When it’s a full moon, Miller encourages parents to take their kids on a walk at night with flashlights.

Miller also emphasizes reading readiness. By the end of the year, some of her pre-kindergarten students will be reading and others will be able to sound out different words and manipulate different vowel and consonant sounds to form words.

Later in the fall, Miller said she plans to take children to story hour at the nearby Ward County Library at least once a month. An educator from the Roosevelt Park Zoo will also visit the preschool about three times during the year and there will be also a music teacher once a week and an art teacher once a month.

Kids also learn friend-making skills and how to resolve classroom conflicts and other social skills that will help get them ready for kindergarten.

Miller also has her classroom set up with different stations, such as a science corner, an area where kids can paint, and an area where children can experiment with their senses. Water is always a popular addition to the sensory table.

On Monday, her son, Killian ran around the room pushing a toy vacuum cleaner, pretended to make pizza using a kitchen set, played with an abacus and jumped on the trampoline, which is also popular during the winter months.

Miller, who had been a special education teacher, started her preschool in her home in the fall of 2015, a few months after Killian was born. She wanted to remain an educator but also be able to stay at home with her son as she had with his older brothers when they were growing up.

The preschool has been a perfect fit both for her and for Killian.

Miller said she tries to teach preschool the way she wants her own children to be taught.