Learning Philosophy
PROGRAM OVERVIEW
The ASUU Student Child Care Program is dedicated to providing a safe, supportive, challenging and holistic learning environment for young children and their families. The philosophy of the Center is a learning model based on play. The overriding goal is for children to feel enthusiastic about learning, to be interested, curious, and happy as they learn, and to be deeply involved in new and challenging experiences. ASUU Student Child Care Center provides an environment where children feel safe and are encouraged to explore not only materials, but also their relationships with peers and adults. We believe that children learn through hands on play experiences and thrive emotionally, socially, physically, and cognitively when they are actively engaged with their environment and each other. Creative Curriculum, a developmental approach to learning, provides the foundation for daily activity planning, implementation and evaluation.
Goals for children in our 12 – 24 month classroom include helping them to:
- Learn about themselves and others by teaching them how to trust known, caring adults, regulate their own behavior, manage their own feelings, respond to others’ feelings with growing empathy, interact with other children and learn to be a member of a group.
- Begin to develop personal care skills.
- Learn how their bodies move by demonstrating basic gross and fine motor skills.
- Learn about the world by teaching them to sustain attention, understand how objects can be used, show a beginning understanding of cause and effect, an understanding that things can be grouped, the ability to use problem-solving strategies, and engage in pretend play.
- Learn about communication by developing receptive and expressive language, participating in conversations, enjoying books and being read to, showing an awareness of pictures and print, and experimenting with drawing and writing.
Goals for children in our 3-5 yrs. classrooms include helping them to:
- Gain a sense of self by showing the ability to adjust to new situations, demonstrate appropriate trust in adults, recognize their own feelings and manage them appropriately and stand up for their rights.
- Take responsibility for themselves and others by demonstrating self-direction and independence, takes responsibility for own well-being, respects and cares for classroom environment and materials, and follows classroom routines and rules.
- Develop pro-social behavior by learning to play well with other children, recognize the feelings of others and respond appropriately, share and respect the rights of others, and use thinking skills to resolve conflict.
- Develop gross motor skills by learning to demonstrate basic movement skills including running, jumping, hopping, galloping, show balance while moving, climb up and down, pedal and steer a tricycle, and demonstrate throwing, kicking, and catching skills.
- Develop fine motor skills by learning to control small muscles in hands, coordinate eye-hand movement, and use tools for writing and drawing
- Learn and problem solve by observing objects and events with curiosity, approaches problems flexibly, shows persistence in approaching tasks, explores cause and effect, and applies knowledge or experience to a new context.
- Logically think through classifying objects, compare/measure, arrange objects in a series, recognize patterns and repeat them, show awareness of time concepts and sequence, show awareness of position in space, use one-to-one correspondence, and use numbers and counting.
- Learn representation and symbolic thinking by teaching them to take on pretend roles and situations, make believe with objects, and make and interpret representations.
- Enhance listening and speaking skills by teaching children to hear and discriminate sounds of language, express self using words and expanded sentences, understands and follows oral directions, answers and asks questions, and actively participates in conversations.
- Learn about reading/writing by teaching them to enjoy and value reading, demonstrate understanding of print concepts, demonstrate knowledge of the alphabet, use emerging reading skills to make meaning from print, comprehend and interpret meaning from books and other texts, understand the purpose of writing, and write letters and words.
SAMPLE CURRICULUM SHEET
