Peek Into Our Classroom!

Welcome to a brand-new year!  

One of the biggest misconceptions of child care centers or daycares is that we are simply large-scale babysitters. However, we are so much more than that. As an Early Learning Center, we take the development of the children in our care very seriously, and we aim to nurture that development across all domains (social, emotional, language, cognitive, and physical).

As we begin this week, we are starting fresh with our curriculum.  We use the Creative Curriculum from Smart Teach (formerly Teaching Strategies).   Our curriculum is play-based, meaning there are never any worksheets or formal “lessons” for the children.  Rather, the curriculum guides teachers through various activities and experiences, offers prompts to promote conversation and engagement, and really seeks to make learning fun and hands-on. 

The curriculum for the Early Learning Class is broken down into 10 units called ‘Studies’.  We will cover approximately one study a month - some are a little longer than 4 weeks, some are a little shorter.  While each study focuses on one overarching topic, the day-to-day activities cover all of the developmental/learning domains. So, for example, while we learn about all the ways we use paper in January, children will also be exposed to counting, shapes, language/reading, fine and gross motor skills, matching, and much more.

In general, our year will look like this:

January - Paper

February - Light

March - Seats

April - Rocks

May - Containers

June - summer activities

July  - summer activities

August - Brushes

September - Clothes

October - Shoes

November - Bags

December - Balls

Each theme is something that the children encounter in their everyday life and has a few main components.  First, is exploring the topic, where the focus is on letting the children get familiar with the objects and the teacher asks questions that prompt further thinking.  Next up are the investigation questions.  There are usually 2-3 of these, and each one is covered over 3-5 days.  These let the children dive deeper into specific aspects of the study.  Finally, there is the celebration of learning, where we wrap up the topic and review what they’ve learned and what they enjoyed.  

As a center, we also try to incorporate the month’s holidays into our fun, so we do set aside days where our focus is on holiday crafts and just having fun.

A few snapshots from our Brushes study.

Our toddler classroom looks a little different, with a new theme every four weeks. While these also cover the full range of developmental and learning domains, the primary goal for the toddler curriculum is connection and engagement with the teacher through play. These connections - plus the daily routines and rhythms of the classroom - are what they need to thrive where they are and lay the foundations for success in the early learning classroom.