Our philosophy of care and children’s learningHow our practices meet NAEYC Accreditation Standards

Teachers are sensitive to family concerns and reassure family members who are concerned about leaving children in non-family care.

• Parents are invited to transition their children into the program during their first weeks of care. This is a period of time when families familiarize themselves with our practices and build relationships with their primaries.

• In the first months emails from the teams, primaries, and administration offer information to support, comfort, and deepen relationships with parents.

• These are paired with an Open House gathering, lunch time conversations, and conferences with primaries.

Teaching staff function as secure bases for children. They respond promptly in developmentally appropriate ways to children’s positive initiations, negative emotions, and feelings of hurt and fear by providing comfort, support, and assistance.

Watch for teaching staff's sensitivity to individual children (versus treating all children basically the same way). When there is not an opportunity to observe all indicators, credit should be given UNLESS there are clear missed opportunities when indicators would be expected to be observed.

• Children are at risk for learning if there isn’t an attached relationship from which they can build so caregivers make themselves available to young children during routine care experiences.

• As the relationship with the primary educator is established, we see the end of attachment-seeking behaviors, the reduction of anxiety.

• The deep relationship between the child and the caregiver impacts development and supports intellectual development through play.

Teachers provide children opportunities to develop the classroom community through participation in decision making about classroom rules, plans, and activities

Practice for meeting this criterion could include labeling and discussing classroom rules and schedules or offering children choices in selecting areas or materials in which to play

• We prepare children for the world by offering them opportunities for persistence, determination, problem solving, frustration, discouragement, collaboration, and success.

• In the toddler and preschool programs, educators build a curriculum that invites children to build community through their daily routine so the daily schedule is formed around small and large group moments.

A clearly stated curriculum or curriculum framework provides a coherent focus for planning children’s experiences. It allows for adaptations and modifications to ensure access to the curriculum for all children.

A purchased curriculum product is not required. A program may choose to develop its own curriculum. However, programs do need to have a clear, written curriculum framework.

• The Children’s Center sees that there are two interwoven paths leading to children’s learning.

• One path fosters a nurturing world where the healthy development of attachment and emotion can thrive.

• The other path is the engaging environment where substantive and deep play offers cognitive growth and social development.

Children have varied opportunities to develop skills for entering into social groups, developing friendships, learning to help, and other pro-social behavior.

This criterion is about opportunities, not staff support with social skills. Evidence includes schedules that include multiple groupings and clean up time, and for environments that provide for small (2 children) and larger groupings.

• In each of the programs, children participate in social exchanges during routines, community activities like cooking, cleaning, and laundry folding, and in the daily engagement in their activities.

• Often these are small group activities so that children can work with each other in manageable interactions and begin to see themselves not only in relation to their caregiver but also to each other.

Infants and toddlers/twos are provided: an environment that allows them to move freely and achieve mastery of their bodies through self- initiated movement. They have multiple opportunities to practice emerging skills in coordination, movement and balance, and perceptual-motor integration.

Perceptual motor integration relates to the manner by which a child takes in sensory information, processes and interprets the information, and then responds automatically to it.

• As the one- two year-olds find their physical skills strengthening they are challenged with climbing, moving, and pushing objects.

• Access to nature is an integral part of the program so our play yard is created to support exploration in nature and an appreciation of the seasons.

• Children garden, and play in the growing grasses, sand, mud, and water. The reliance on stumps, rocks, branches, and pine needles stimulates the child’s concentration and focus on their play.

Children are provided varied opportunities and materials that encourage them to engage in discussions with one another.

Dramatic play props (telephones, dolls, clothes), puppets, flannel boards, language board games, and small animal figures are examples of materials that promote discussion when used.

• The housekeeping and block area are housed so that with the play stands, larger blocks, and fabric children’s imaginative and social play is nurtured. This large space is the canvas for activity and imagination during the day.

• The children’s initiative is strengthened through a curriculum that encourages each child’s self-initiation in play and in social learning with respectful, observant adults who are close at hand.

• Therefore the children are prepared to explore themselves and others as they engage with group activities.

Children have varied opportunities to be read books in an engaging manner in group or individualized settings at least twice a day, be read to regularly in individualized ways including one-to-one or in small groups of two to six children, explore books on their own and have places that are conducive to the quiet enjoyment of books, have access to various types of books including storybooks, factual books, books with rhymes, alphabet books, and wordless books.

The intent is that children have opportunities to be read to that are not just in big groups or on their own; and that they have a chance to interact with the story and ask questions. Evidence may include posted schedules, pictures, as well as observation. Rate no if children access books but staff do not read individually, rate ‘No Opp’ if books are not accessed by individuals during the observation or no small group reading is observed.

• Each program has a cozy book area that is used for reading and transition times for children throughout the day. The books are chosen to reflect their interests, the population in the room, and their emotional world.

• Children are able to look at books together, read with their parents before they leave, and have time to read with the teachers throughout the day.

• As children get older they are offered oral stories at lunch, in a puppet show format before nap, and through song and verses at circle time.

Children are provided varied opportunities and materials that encourage them to integrate mathematical terms into everyday conversation.

Examples of mathematical terms, more, less, big, little, longer, round, square, add, plus, inch, measure, take away, equals, volume, mass, how many, five, first

• Children may describe, measure, and compare quantitative attributes of different objects without our knowing. We offer them “loose parts” to use in this pursuit: wooden pieces, blocks, soft balls, and natural materials.

• They compare alternative solutions to a problem as a way of considering who has more, less, and equal amounts.

• Patterns exist everywhere—in regularly occurring shapes or structures and in repeating events and relationships.

All children have opportunities to access technology (e.g., tape recorders, microscopes, computers) that they can use by themselves, collaboratively with their peers, with teaching staff or a parent.

Technology is defined broadly to include knowledge and use of tools and machines, not simply computers and other forms of high technology but also things such as tape recorders, cameras, and video as well as simple tools like gears, wheels, and levers.

• Our philosophy on technology moves away from the indoor, teacher-directed model of using materials one way with supervision and instruction. We offer a hazard-free environment so tools can be used effectively and independently.

• We also see children using tools to support their physical development as well as their cognitive skills. Offering children “loose parts” invites creative exploration.

Children are provided varied opportunities to develop and widen their repertoire of skills that support artistic expression (e.g., cutting, gluing, and caring for tools).

Conversations about these things can be evidence of opportunities. Varied means two or more. Evidence may include scissors, play dough, clay, tools, painting, glue, lesson plans, art projects, lists of materials, clean-up routines.

• We recognize that the use of artistic materials is important as they express themselves however, we see the limits that occur when a product is the focus and the scope includes only paint/crayons.

• We sing, dance, and appreciate live music from our harpist, violinist, uke, and banjo players. We cook, bake, and make play dough.

• In the older programs, children use paint, crayons, 3-D materials and glue, as well as building collaboratively with collage materials or wood.

• In PS children may finger knit or felt balls as part of their artistic curriculum.

Children are provided varied opportunities and materials that allow them to contribute to the well-being of a. their classroom and b. the community, including care for the social and physical environments in which they live.

Children can positively contribute in creating a harmonious environment within both their classrooms and their community.

• In each program children participate in organizing their self-care routines. They help wash their hands, put the cloth in the laundry, put their dishes in the bin, and tidy up their space. Children are also invited to care for the whole room rather than their things.

• We compost, recycle, and care for the outside space so that there is a consideration for the larger picture. Composting or giving food to “Katie’s hens” is seen as a gift rather than garbage.