Curriculum
Infant Curriculum
Infants and toddlers learn naturally through relationships, routines, play, and exploration, which fosters their social, physical, emotional, and cognitive development. Upon enrollment, parents are encouraged to visit our program, meet with the staff, and share the child’s routine at home, to ensure the child will receive consistent care between home and the Center. Daily, the parents will receive updates about their childcare giving routine and experiences at departure that will include bottle/feedings, naps, diapering.
We recognize that infants learn and develop daily, and we support children to independently make choices to develop independence and self-esteem. We provide a daily schedule that is flexible and used as a guide to assure the individual needs of the children are met, while giving the children the choice of participating in planned activities. Our educators strive to have the children in our care feel safe and comfortable to grow and learn. They use simple, repetitive, and consistent language that is developmentally appropriate and encourages learning through stories, songs, and using a wide variety of toys and materials. Educators will describe to the children what they are doing throughout the day, for example, when changing the child’s diaper, at potty time, naptime, snack, and lunchtime.
Our educators will encourage the children to practice self-help skills and independence by encouraging the children to hang up their own coats, wash their hands and by putting their toys away. Children use their senses to learn and to make sense of the environment and world around them. Our Centre provides a wide variety of toys made from natural products and textures. We gather materials from nature for the children to explore and manipulate to develop a relationship with nature. To support the children’s sense of hearing, we provide children with a diverse variety of music to listen to and dance while using drums and cymbals for the children to tap on and shakers to shake. The infant’s sense of sight is always engaged, and educators continually assess the room to determine the appropriate amount of visual stimulation. For the sense of taste, the children take part in simple baking and taste testing activities, with consideration of all food allergies. Food and activity materials will be infant safe, as children of this age naturally mouth and gum items as part of their learning and development.
During outdoor play, children will be encouraged to take in natural smells, such as rain drenched dirt and the scent of flowers and weeds. The sense of touch will be explored through playing with water, ice, cooked noodles, and many, many snuggles and hugs.
To help encourage and support social development, our program provides toys that allow and encourage children to share and play together. Educators will support social development by playing with the children on their level and modeling sharing between the children. Building strong relationships is especially important in these early years.
Young children need opportunities to interact with other children and educators to develop social skills. At snack and lunchtime, the children sit at tables together to allow a natural setting for socialization. Educators will encourage child interaction by talking about the food the children have, how it tastes and smells.
Preschool Curriculum
Preschool children learn through relationships and experiences with a need to play, explore, and interact in a positive way with elements in our environment. We provide opportunities for long amounts of uninterrupted play throughout the day to avoid disruption to the flow of play. The routines and transition times are flexible and will always have the best interests of the children in mind. Our educators will create an environment for the children that provides planned and spontaneous daily play experiences that closely relate to the children’s interests. Through daily observation of the children at play, educators will document in detail the children’s experiences in the “Child’s Play” binder for all staff to review and use as a guide for future programming. Educators will also document spontaneous play experiences, noting the type of play and how it is selected. When spontaneous play is observed, educators will support the play by offering materials and equipment to further the play and to build on it. Educators will regularly rotate toys, games, activities, and themed centers to change the environment to keep the children interested, motivated, and excited. Educators also plan and research developmentally appropriate activities to further challenge the children to implement during play time.
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To support and encourage physical activity, outdoor play will be provided twice a day to encourage large muscle and gross motor development plus exploration and adventure through climbing, running, jumping, and rolling. Our educators encourage children to explore nature and the world around them by playing in dirt, running, smelling flowers, digging, and sliding. The play yard landscape provides a variety of natural areas to explore that are grassy, rocky, muddy, and sandy. All children regardless of ability are encouraged to maintain a healthy level of daily physical activity to promote a healthy lifestyle and to nurture a love and appreciation for nature.
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Our educators will thoughtfully set up areas that encourage exploration and creativity with materials that will expand play and allow children to experiment in different roles. These areas will encourage independent play, as well as small group play and large group play. Educators will provide play choices that include dramatic play, house/family play, block/car play, science exploration, and an art/craft area with materials of various textures, and sizes to meet and support child development.
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To support and help children develop social and emotional skills, educators will set up opportunities for pretending and role playing that will encourage children to freely express themselves. The environment will offer large group settings that will encourage taking turns and small group interactions that will encourage fostering of friendships. Educators will help to build on and support the child’s continually evolving interests by providing new materials and equipment. Educators will get down to the child’s level to interact, ask open ended questions and actively play with the children. We believe children should feel safe to express their emotions and have those emotions validated by the educators caring for them. Our educators allow children opportunities to choose and direct their own play experiences which empowers children and helps them to lead their own play.
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To build on cognitive development educators will provide the children with open-ended art materials, of various textures and colours, to manipulate which will support imagination and exploration. Children will have opportunities to use materials such as scissors, pencil crayons, crayons, rulers, and stencils to promote hand eye coordination and to practice fine motor skills. Children will be encouraged to use the materials to express themselves and to use their imagination to create a one-of-a-kind masterpiece. To encourage self-help, independence, and socialization educators will provide puzzles, board games, cards, and sorting games which also support counting and colour recognition. The play space is set up to encourage exploration, creativity, and the opportunity to use the materials in a way other than their initial intention.