We believe that children learn best through interacting with their environment. We support learning in a play-based, developmentally appropriate environment that incorporates a wide range of activities and multicultural aspects. Our teaching practices are based on early educational theory, including Erik Erikson's stages of socio-emotional development and Jean Piaget's theories of how children think and learn.

Every teacher is responsible for planning and implementing theme-related learning activities through the use of developmentally appropriate practice.  We incorporate best practices in early childhood education and facilitate learning through play while addressing physical, social, language, cognitive and emotional development of each child.  Lesson plans are created every week for each classroom and coincide with standards set by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. The center utilizes the Creative Curriculum model.

Infants and Toddlers
In the infant and toddler classrooms, we provide a rich sensory environment with soft spaces, low surfaces and colorful objects for safe and stimulating exploration. The older infant and toddler classrooms include an activity play area to develop gross motor skills, as well as a wide variety of learning activities that address the new interests and abilities of the children as they begin to talk, walk and explore. Toddlers enjoy stories and books, art projects, experiment with make believe, play with educational toys, explore sand and water, have fun with music and movement and spend time outdoors.

Self-Concept Development
Infants and toddlers are discovering themselves, their bodies and emotions, as well as learning to feel valued and secure in their relationships, feel competent and proud about what they can do and feel supported as they express their independence.

Emotional and Social Development
Children learn about their feelings and communicate a broad range of emotions through gestures, sounds and over time, words.  At this age, it's all about "me and mine," so discovering the needs and feelings of others is a learning process. Children develop trusting relationships with nurturing adults, show interest in peers, demonstrate caring and cooperation, practice sharing and try roles and relationships through imitation and play.

Language Development
Through singing, books and interactions with their peers and adults, children learn to communicate, express needs and thoughts without using words, respond to verbal and nonverbal commands and gradually begin to develop language skills.

Physical Development
Children learn about moving and doing, develop gross motor skills, develop fine motor skills, coordinate eye and hand movements and develop self-help skills.

Cognitive Development
Children acquire thinking skills, gain an understanding of basic concepts and relationships, apply knowledge to new situations and develop strategies for solving problems.

Preschool and Pre-Kindergarden
Older toddler and preschool and pre-Kindergarden classrooms are organized by learning centers, including:

Art Center
At the art center, children will learn observation, recall, classification, creativity, fine motor skills, emotional expression, pride, autonomy, sharing and language.

Block Play Center
While playing with blocks, children will be involved in creative thinking, problem solving, exploration, experimentation, area, space, size, shape, depth, balance, gravity, value, weight, position, one-to-one correspondence, language, patterning, stability and cause and effect relationships.

Book Center
When reading books and being read to, children will learn concept formation, object labeling, peer and adult interaction, sentence structure, language, vocabulary growth and a positive attitude toward reading and books.

Manipulative Center
While working with manipulatives, children will learn problem solving, decision making skills, peer interaction, self-discipline, relationships, dexterity, task completion, classification, sequencing, number concepts, visual discrimination, self-concept, fine motor control and eye coordination.

Math Center
While working on math and science activities, children will learn comparison, measurement, classification, counting, operations, number concept, spatial relationships, sets, nature, language and problem solving.

Music Center
Dancing and listening to music teaches children emotional expression, positive self concept, creativity, awareness of self and others, listening, communication, following directions, creative movement, imagination, language, beat and tempo.

Sensory Center
While working with sensory exploration, children will learn large and small motor control, eye-hand coordination, identification of properties, measurement, comparison, observation, evaluation, prediction, cause and effect relationships, cooperation, social interaction, language, self-discipline and sharing.

Writing Center
When learning to write, children will learn organization, fine motor control and language skills.

Science and Social Studies
Children will learn about the physical properties of objects, living things, nature, the earth, and the environment. They will also learn about how people live, work, get along with others and how we affect and are shaped by our environment.

Technology
Children learn about computers and their basic operations and uses. We use educational and age-appropriate computer skills that help to reinforce many of the skills as stated above.

Cooking Activities
While being involved with cooking, children will learn self-esteem, safety, cooperation, nutrition, health, task completion, language, following directions, experimentation, cause and effect relationships, measurement and concept formation.

Dramatic Play Center
During dramatic play, children will learn socialization, representation, language, coping strategies, sharing, cooperative decision making, imagination and problem solving.

Outdoor Play
When playing outdoors, children learn about decision making skills, problem solving, autonomy, self-concept, large muscle coordination, social relationships, language, nature, imagination and safety.

Social and Emotional Development
Throughout all of the daily activities, children are learning to make friends, solve problems, share, express feelings and thoughts, respect others, self-control, and to follow directions and routines.