INFANT PROGRAM

(6 weeks to 15 months)

While all infants will receive care from all the infant staff throughout the day, each infant will be assigned a primary caregiver. The primary caregiver will coordinate the care for each assigned child and will be responsible for updating the child’s needs and service plans every 3 months in collaboration with parents. Activities planned each day include but are not limited to:

 • Daily care: diaper changes, washing hands, eating, napping

 • Extensive talking to the children throughout all activities by naming the people, actions and happenings in their world and baby sign language

 • Song time and finger plays (singing and recorded music)

 • Board and cloth picture books are always available for children and for caregivers to read to children. Books have a variety of cultures pictured.

 • Variety of toys to freely explore: rattles, toy animals, blocks, wheel toys, dolls, containers, balls, puzzles

 • Dress-Up clothes: hats, gloves, shoes

 • Sensory play: water, sand, Play-Doh, mirrors

 • Music and movement (baby yoga, massages, dancing)

 ·    Swimming with parent participation

 • Outside play time: grass, sand, climbing, exploring, stroller walks

TODDLER PROGRAM

(15 months to 2 years)

Toddlers are striving to be self-reliant. They count on the attentiveness and understanding of the adults in their lives to create environments that are developmentally appropriate. We create environments that provide safe, challenging, and meaningful materials and interactions for their learning. Activities planned each day include but are not limited to:

 • Daily care: diaper changes, toilet learning, washing hands, eating, napping

 • Extensive talking to the children about what they are doing; building language into all activities

 • Circle time: songs, dancing, recorded music, naming items in pictures, discussions (answering questions)

• Books are available all day to handle and look at and to be read aloud by the teachers. Pictures in books and around the room reflect various cultures.

 • Variety of toys to explore: blocks, trucks, puzzles, manipulatives such as peg boards, constructing and connecting toys, containers for sorting.

 • Dramatic play centers: cooking, dress-up, doll play

 • Sensory: water, sand, Play-Doh, mirrors

 • Art and craft materials: paint, crayons, collage materials

 • Outside play time: play equipment, grass, sand, sand toys, wheel toys, balls, boxes

 • Walking trips in the neighborhood

 ·  Swimming with parent participation

 • Opportunities are created for individual and small group play under guidance of teachers

PRESCHOOL PROGRAM

(3 years to 5 years)

Valuable social skills are developed by children in a group setting. Preschool children enjoy helping and participating in all activities. The teachers provide opportunities for sharing, caring and helping. Learning experiences that respond to children’s individual differences in ability and interests are planned by the teachers for this group of 3- to 5-year-olds. Small group times with like ages are built into the day to allow children time to explore developmentally appropriate areas. Mixed-age group time is also planned to give children opportunities to interact and engage socially in a variety of ways.  Activities planned each day

Include but are not limited to:

 • Daily care: bathroom activities, tooth brushing, washing hands, eating, napping, and helping prepare for meal time

 • Circle time: singing, dancing, recorded music, discussions (reflecting on past and current happenings, daily routines, time concepts, seasons of the year), telling stories, and basic skills

 • Books: available all day to read and to be read aloud. Pictures in books and in the room reflect a wide range of cultures and living environments. A private quiet space is provide for children while reading.

 • Observe natural events: cause and effect relationships, planting and watching seeds grow, life cycle of plants, animals and insects

• Extend children’s thinking and learning during activities by adding new materials, asking open-ended questions, offering ideas or suggestions, joining in their play, and providing assistance in solving problems.

 • Create opportunities to use numbers, counting objects, labeling, classifying, sorting objects by shape, color, size

 • Videos, developmentally appropriate

 • Create opportunities to see the alphabet and simple words throughout the classroom

 • Take walks in the neighborhood as well as bus trips to museums, parks, and the aquarium away from the center

 • Arts and craft materials are always available

 • Dramatic play areas rich with materials to pretend housekeeping, working

 • Outside play two times a day: opportunities for touching trees, grass, earth, sand, places to hide, run, and climb. Props to use in dramatic play

 • Opportunities to play uninterrupted.

 • Opportunities to return to activities begun in the morning or the day before. Teacher’s help the play evolve over long periods.

·    Swimming with parent participation

SCHOOL-AGE PROGRAM

(kindergarten to sixth grade)

 We provide the school-age children in the after school program and the Summer Enrichment program opportunities to express their growing independence and self-reliance such as the ability to make choices and initiate their own activities.  Activities planned each day include but are not limited to:

 • Daily care: Separate bathrooms for boys and girls, washing hands, eating, organizing room

 • Homework time during the school year. Teachers work with the children

 • Engage children in sustained project work: preparing for a special event by creating a flier, gathering materials for cooking, planting and caring for a garden over time, developing clubs such as reading, math and sports.

 • Engage children in discussions about daily happenings, stories about themselves, their families, and their cultural heritage and discussions of daily happenings in school.

 • Opportunities to read books, write and produce plays, publish newspapers, write stories.

 • Provide for both planned and spontaneous activities in team sports, group games, board and card games. The focus is on the activity rather than the outcome.

 • Art materials available at all times: paint, paper, scissors, clay, markers, pencils, stencils

 • Crafts available at all times

 • Complex manipulative toys available such as connecting or interlocking toys, jigsaw puzzles

 • Computers

 • Videos, developmentally appropriate

 • Outside play: opportunities for physical exercise, use of climbing structure, wheel toys, bats, and balls

 • Trips taken in the neighborhood as well as bus trips to museums, parks, the aquarium

 • Enrichment brought into the program: dance instruction, fine arts  

 • Opportunities to play alone, to work on a project to their “heart’s content”

 SUMMER ENRICHMENT PROGRAM

The summer enrichment program is for children ages 6 to 12. The program is available Monday through Friday from 6:00a.m.–6:00p.m.  The program is set in a separate classroom downstairs from the Child Development Center. The staff are experienced and trained in elementary and/or secondary education. Weekly field trips are planned and an end-of-the-summer fun trip is planned as well. Field trip costs are included in the weekly rate.