Curriculum that is used is aligned with Common Core Standards (both state and national)
Over the years Sandy has identified the need for child care that is home based, but is developmentally and educationally focused. Early Childhood is a time for significant development in many areas and children need a setting that will not only meet their needs, but also have professionals that know how to expand their skills. Some developmental areas are more complex than what meets the eye, and with Sandy's educational background and the HighScope curriculum,she knows what, and how, to teach so children can meet the next milestone.
At Damascus Child Care, we want to make sure that each child is receiving the best early childhood education and child care, to prepare for life, and school. We take great pride in providing a safe, clean, organized, and structured environment where children can excel. With the director/lead teacher's educational training and experience, we provide a curriculum that not only includes all developmental areas, but is research and evidence based.
What does research and evidence based mean?
The curriculum's selected have been developed using extensive research on early childhood development. In addition, that have been proven to provide positive results over and over again. It is vital to have a research/evidence program, and most vital in the area of early literacy.
HighScope
Highscope is a research/evidence based curriculum that meets requirements to what components are needed for an effective early childhood educational program. Highscope's curriculum spans from infants and toddlers, to preschool. The curriculum and the experience of the teacher allow for differentiated instruction, so if a child is below age level, at age level or exceeding age level skills, the focus is to keep adding skills to their current skills. For more information please visit HighScope at www.highscope.org
- HighScope includes child instruction and assessments, staff development, and accountability assessment
- Space and materials in a HighScope setting are carefully arranged to promote active learning. The area is divided into interest areas, which are well organized and labeled.
- HighScope provides a daily routine which gives preschoolers a sense of control over the events of the day. There is a balance of teacher and child initiated activities. The schedule is consistent and includes the same time frames each day; plan-do-review sequence, small and large group time, greeting and message board time. Music and movement are part of large group and incorporate many skills that the children are learning. Outside time will occur each day, unless there is poor
weather. - HighScope focuses on what is considered the Key Development Indicators (there are a total of 52 key indicators that are fall under main developmental areas). The curriculum is built around the balance of teacher directed and child-initiated activities in five main content areas:
Approaches in Learning:
-Language, Literacy, and Communication
-Social and Emotional
-Physical Development, Health, and Well Being
-Arts and Sciences (includes Math)
- Centers include: Dramatic Play (kitchen, dress up, dolls), light table with many manipulatives (including light
letters, blocks, shapes, etc), Reading and Writing Center, Block Area, Thinking Center (includes manipulates
related to science, reading, math, problem solving, and sensory), and the Art Center (has plenty of materials
for children to try out, different mediums, papers, stamps, variety of painting tools, etc)
Reading (starting at age 2)
We will be using HighScope's Growing Readers Early Literacy Curriculum, Treasures (McGraw and Hill), and Reading A-Z. Some groups of children will start Treasures, based on pre-reading and reading abilities.
Curriculum focuses on the areas researched by the National Reading Panel. The four areas are:
-Comprehension- including vocabulary building, connection, retelling and prediction
-Phonological Awareness- Phonological Awareness is a preliterate skill that does not involve looking at letters or words. It is the identification that our language is made of sounds and we can manipulate those sounds to create words. This includes rhyming, alliteration of beginning phonemes (example: I take "c" sound away from "cat" and now I say the "b" sound and then "at", and you made "bat")
-Alphabetic Principle-including name recognition, name writing, letter recognition and letter-sound correspondence
-Concepts about Print-including identifying book parts, orienting books for reading, distinguishing between pictures and words, and understanding the direction of text
Once a child begins Kindergarten, the focus is on the five pillars of reading: Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Comprehension, Fluency, and Vocabulary
Access to www.raz-kids.com and readinga-z.com
Each child enrolled will have access to raz-kids.com and readinga-z.com materials. Sandy will provide what levels children are working at and what skills they are working on. Then, children can practice skills at home in an interactive way (raz-kids) and by reading books that can be printed out (readinga-z).
Writing
First Strokes will be used for teaching pre-writing and writing skills. This is a systematic program that is developed by Occupational Therapists in Texas. This program is a multi
sensory program that provides gross motor and fine motor opportunities to help children learn the strokes needed to write upper and lower case letters. For more information
please visit www.thehandwritingclinic.com
Math
We will be using HighScope's Number Plus Preschool Mathematics Curriculum
The curriculum focuses on the following areas:
-Number Sense and Operations including number words and symbols, counting, comparing and ordering (quantity), combining and dividing groups, adding and subtracting
-Geometry includes shapes, transformation, and spatial relationships
-Measurement includes measurement terms, unit, comparing and ordering by attribute
-Algebra includes alternating patterns and increasing and decreasing patterns
-Data Analysis includes describing, organizing and comparing, representing, and interpreting and applying
Social/Emotional
We will be using Positive Behavior Support Systems to help teach children expectations in each component of the day. This is a preventative way to teach children appropriate behaviors and they feel successful, because they know exactly what their body should be doing, how to treat others, and how to use materials.
For conflict resolution, we use HighScopes six-step problem-solving approach. This encourages children to resolve conflicts in an appropriate way and teachers guide children to increase language development, reflection, and problem solving during the process.