River Hills Early Childhood Center

Our Christian Curriculum is based on the following Christian Character Qualities: Forgiveness, Gentleness, Compassion, Thankfulness, Responsibility, Love, Humility, Initiative, Contentment, Obedience, Patience, Generosity, Joyfulness, Orderliness, Discernment, Reverence, Diligence, Perseverance, Christian Example, Respectfulness, and Self Control.

Our Christian Curriculum includes using the “Hands On Bible” materials and themes. This curriculum serves as a foundation for the lessons taught throughout the year. Each classroom adds its own unique activities to implement these themes.

The preschool and kindergarten classrooms participate in Bible Club once a month during the school year. For this activity, the children typically gather in the sanctuary for a special Bible lesson. Bible Club focuses on a special topic. The children will learn more about the Bible through songs, stories, and activities at this time.

Summer VBS Camp is our curriculum for each of the summer months. Our summer programming takes on more of a summer camp feel. Bible curriculum during this time is developed on a VBS curriculum and its themes are extended throughout the entire summer.

Infant Curriculum Statement

Infants develop new skills every day! They explore and learn about their world through their senses and emerging motor skills. They are born curious and ready to learn. We create infant learning environments to provide experiences that respond to infants’ natural curiosity and emerging skills. There are multiple sources of developmentally appropriate stimulation in the classroom. Learning and development for infants includes their total experience within the learning environment.

It is critical that the learning environment is physically safe and clean so that infants can safely explore and interact with the other children, adults and materials in the classroom.

Infants benefit most from individualized care and should be allowed to follow their own schedule for eating, sleeping and playing. Infants are dependent on close, nurturing relationships as the source of positive physical, social, emotional and cognitive growth. Infants learn about their world by observing adult reactions. They develop best when they are assured of having a trusted caregiver who can read their cues and respond to their needs. We understand child development and how infants learn and are able to read and respond to their needs and behavior.

Language development is particularly crucial during the infant period. We provide many opportunities for infants to engage in meaningful dialogue. We acknowledge and encourage the infants’ forms of communication. We actively use and teach American Sign Language and basic Spanish with the infants. Baby sign gives the non verbal child the ability to communicate and helps to alleviate frustration while they are gaining their verbal skills.

Planning learning experiences around themes is not necessary for infants however in our infant room we accentuate the children’s day with art, sensory, and other activities that have a common theme. Infants do not need their environment to be arranged by learning centers, however, the learning environment includes symbolic, sensory, literacy, curiosity, movement, music, and outdoor experiences.

Toddler Curriculum Statement

Toddlerhood is as challenging as it is exciting for toddlers and adults. As they become aware of “self” and are able to maneuver physically through their world, they develop independence. Toddlers are curious by nature and enthusiastic explorers. They are egocentric but are interested and enjoy interacting with their peers.

The toddler environment is constructed with the thought in mind that every experience is a potential learning experience. Learning and development for toddlers is their total experience in the learning environment, not just specific learning activities during specific times in the daily schedule. We organize the environment using learning or play centers.

Repetition of movement and activities is important for brain development for toddlers. Repetition strengthens the neural pathways that toddlers are developing. So although novelty is stimulating and should be reflected in their environment, they need practice with activities that are familiar to them. Toddlers enjoy using the skills that already have developed. They like re-exploring the familiar. They have a need to repeat the familiar to cement those skills.

Problem-solving experiences for toddlers involve manipulating, experimenting, figuring out how parts relate to the whole, discovering one –to –one correspondence, cause and effect and creativity. Toddlers enjoy putting things together and taking them apart, building and constructing. They enjoy sorting and matching, and love to carry things.

The development of language is particularly crucial during the toddler period. We provide many opportunities for toddlers to engage in dialogue with peers and adults. We acknowledge and encourage the child’s communication during all learning experiences. We actively use and teach American Sign Language and basic Spanish with the toddlers. Signing with the toddlers helps to build the children’s vocabulary both verbally and nonverbally and allows them to communicate their needs and express themselves.

We organize the environment using learning or play centers; giving toddlers options and choice in smaller group settings. We understand child development which impacts how we plan for learning experiences.

Toddlers perfect their motor skills rather than acquire them as they did as infants. Toddlers need to climb, run, throw, and jump.

Play allows toddlers a combination of exploring new objects, practicing new and familiar skills, opportunities to problem solve, meet new challenges and build language skills.

Young Preschool and Pre-K Curriculum Statement

Children in the Preschool years are curious, creative, and playful. Their world is full of exciting and interesting ideas to explore and learn about. They need variety in activities, freedom to explore and experiment, a safe environment in which to make mistakes, and engaging units or projects to get involved in. Children of this age benefit from a combination of individual, shared, and teacher-led activities.

The role of the teacher includes: (1) understanding the learning goals for the age group and how to help each child achieve them, (2) knowing as much about each child as possible in order to provide the variety in the classroom, (3) preparing experiences to match each child’s individual likes and learning styles. Children of this age learn by doing, not by being told what to do. They must have firsthand experiences. We ask ourselves the following when we are tempted to do something for the child, “Who needs the practice, me or the child?”

To help children develop toward each learning standard, we provide materials and activities that the children may not have used or mastered. These activities must be appropriate to each level of ability and be challenging but not frustrating.

The materials in the classroom must provide immediate feedback to the child. Building with blocks, throwing a ball, pounding play dough, and pouring water all provide immediate feedback and problem solving situations. These activities are the most effective learning materials. In addition, we provide creative and literacy experiences that encourage exploration, writing, and reading.

We teach American Sign Language and Spanish within our classrooms as an additional means of developing children’s language skills.

We provide plenty of time to explore, play, and experiment. For learning to occur, it takes time and repetition. Children learn as they engage in sustained amounts of play and exploration.

The teacher’s role during play time is connected to the child’s learning and developing. We extend children’s learning by routinely sharing in activities chosen by the children. We observe, share, converse, and extend learning during the shared activity. We acknowledge the child’s efforts and talk about how far she’s come. It’s during this time that authentic assessment notes are made and level of development is observed. But, it’s also at this time that the child’s learning is moved farther along to what she can do on her own.

Socially constructed knowledge is knowledge that children and teachers create together. We provide many opportunities for conversation, sharing ideas, asking questions, and helping each other. We watch for times when children can become peer tutors; each child is an expert at something. We help children use that expertise to help others in the classroom.

Classroom lesson plans contain enough information so the teacher feels prepared, yet flexible enough to make room for children’s questions and “side trips”.

Teaching Practices at River Hills Early Childhood Center

A teacher’s moment-by-moment actions and interactions with children are the most powerful predictor of learning outcomes and development. Curriculum is very important, but what the teacher does is most important.

Both child-guided and teacher-guided experiences are vital to children’s development and learning. Developmentally appropriate programs provide sizeable periods of time when children may select activities to pursue from among the rich choices teach­ers have prepared in various centers in the room. In addition to these activities, chil­dren ages 3–8 benefit from planned, teacher-guided, interactive small-group and large-group experiences.

Play is important. Rather than slowing children’s learning by reducing the time devoted to academic activities, play actually promotes key abilities that enable children to learn successfully. In high-level dramatic play, for example, the collaborative planning of roles and scenarios and the impulse control required to stay within the play’s constraints develop children’s self-regulation, symbolic thinking, memory, and language—capacities critical to later learning, social competence, and school success.

Because of how they spend their time outside of school, many young children now lack the ability to play at the high level of complexity and engagement that affords so many cognitive, social, and emotional benefits. As a result, it is vital for early childhood set­tings to provide opportunities for sustained high-level play and for teachers to actively support children’s progress toward such play.

Effective teachers are intentional in their use of a variety of approaches and strategies to support children’s interest and ability in each learning domain. Skilled teachers adapt curriculum to the group they are teaching and to each individual child to promote optimal learning and development. Summarized from: http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/KeyMessages.pdf