What Your Child Learns

The Classroom

Our classroom is set up for learning. Children have many opportunities to make choices, come up with ideas, experiment, and take responsibility for their work. Here’s what you’ll see when you visit:

• Materials are on low shelves, in containers, and on hooks, so children can get them independently and put them away.
• Picture and word labels are on containers and shelves, so children know where materials belong and learn to use print.
• There are distinct interest areas—blocks, dramatic play, toys and games, art, discovery, library, sand and water, music and movement, cooking, computers, and different play spaces outdoors—so children know what choices are available and make decisions.
• A variety of learning materials are in each area, so, no matter where children choose to play, they learn.

Classroom Activities

When you visit your child’s classroom, you see a room full of children playing. You may wonder what we are doing to help children learn. As children play, we watch how they use materials. We listen. We talk with them to find out what they are thinking and trying to do. We help children become aware of their actions, offer suggestions, and think about what materials to offer next.
Then we challenge them to think further. This is how we encourage the development of skills children will need in elementary school.

The Daily Schedule

We want your child to feel secure and independent, to move from one activity to another as easily and confidently as possible. And we want to provide a variety of learning experiences for a well-rounded education. So we plan a daily schedule with these goals in mind. We follow this same schedule day after day. A picture schedule works well for us. After a few months, children are amazingly independent. They tell us what they are supposed to do next!

Outdoors

The time children spend outdoors every day is just as important to their learning as the time they spend The time children spend outdoors every day is just as important to their learning as the time they spend in the classroom. Unless the weather is severe, we take children outdoors every day, often more than once.