About Us

• WHAT we do?
• HOW we do it?
• WHY we do it?

Professionally – "Early Childhood Education" is a science that we take seriously – We have developmental reasons for everything we do – but the children just think its all "fun"!

Science and math become integrated with reading, creative art, and social studies concepts –

to these we add music, dramatic and physical activities.

Through the process of "play" and interactivity –

children's vocabulary development and emergent literacy, along with the ability to think and write creatively – are inter –twined with concepts of problem solving, predicting outcome and logical thinking!

Our center adds the methodologies that allow children to develop "multiple intelligence".

We are on target with the guidelines of CDA certification standards, Universal Pre Kindergarten programs, Head Start programs, NAEYC, and Board of Education guidelines. These are all programs that promote age appropriate early childhood methodologies we implement here!

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How are these implemented?

Our center uses age appropriate activities that initiate the pre readiness and readiness skills needed to be ready to go to the first grade – or to be advanced enough to go even further!

Simple activities we do here –

such as using "sand play" or "water play" –

initiate math concepts of volume and mass – these activities also integrate the development of descriptive vocabulary in emergent literacy –

along with scientific observation of weight with depth and spatial concepts!

These activities also help a child develop motor skills and body awareness, along with confidence deemed from learning to control one's own body just to be able to measure and pour all by yourself!

This is a huge milestone for a toddler or a preschooler – and in development, the integration of all of these skills is known as "multiple intelligence" –

"multiple intelligence" means children develop knowledge in more then one area – and are able to draw upon many areas when the need to think creatively in order to solve a problem arises in the future.

This also helps initiate "common sense" – which we do not get from anything other then drawing upon our own personal experiences – so if we do not provide children with the ability to have interactive experiences – they grow missing the achievement of their own ability to think creatively and with "common sense".

"Multiple Intelligence" is implemented at our center –

through the integration of many subjects leading to a bigger gain of knowledge in all fields –

to achieve this, one example is when we use water and sand play – but we extend this to teaching units of measurement, volume, mass, depth, and spatial concepts with the use of materials like oatmeal and potato flakes, (raw), rice and beans. Of course along with this, go the "tools" that do the work of such interactivity – which we define for them and practice saying for "phonemic awareness".

To these activities –

we add vocabulary/math skills such as initiating ideas on contrast and comparison – combining like terms – and being able to notice similarities and differences!

All the descriptive vocabulary that emerges, become the words we use for them on "Language Experience" charts the children learn – or attempt to look at and read "by sight"…

This enhances their emergent literacy as well as their sight word "reading" readiness vocabulary.

Most centers just aim to please the parents by mass – teaching one subject at a time – by forcing every one to sit and do the same thing at the same time – all day every day…

Such methods are frowned on the NAEYC (the National Association for the Education of Young Children) – as stated in their guidelines!

We do activities that promote each child's individual ability to think – in a group – not to think and do wheat everyone else is doing.

Having the skill – confidence and self esteem of being able to do things "independently" – as well as being able to tie your own shoes or dress yourself –
is a "big deal" to a child –

as is building a house with blocks, making a pancake out of play dough, finishing a puzzle – working with paste and creating a collage, painting a picture – or even washing the brush you painted with – by yourself – which are other dramatic and "artsy" things we do here.

In our center we use such tools of "play" to implement the skills needed for a child in order to successfully be ready to learn to read and write – the skills professionally called "readiness skills"

"Readiness skills" are:

eye hand coordination, visual discrimination, auditory discrimination, following directions – and task completion skills (also called "stick-to-it-ness").

Without these skills – children are not developmentally ready to begin to learn to read or write formally –

lack of "readiness" only causes stress –

untrained center staff in Child Care Centers that force children to do phonics or "trace" letters before they have the readiness skill of being able to "aim for the line" or correctly hold a pencil – only cause children distress – which in turn creates what is called environmentally induced ADD/ADHD and potential anxiety disorders such as stuttering, bed wetting, social phobias, and a hatred or fear of school altogether!

Centers that have children sitting and tracing – or reciting phonics are not considered by any creditable agency for child development – to be age appropriate – these are considered to be in-appropriate methods!

Children need the opportunity to experience simple things – so that they can develop the skills of motor coordination – eye hand coordination, as well as self confidence – and these need to be developed –

in a stress free environment surrounded by the pleasure of a child satisfying their own, "physical act of doing" –

without being forced to just "sit and listen", or "copy" and trace your name and the alphabet without knowing what these even mean!

In our center –

attention span is age appropriately enhanced by fascination with the activity – not by "force".

We enhance "multiple intelligence" by integrating a child's experience with their own body awareness through participant observation.

Here children are given the opportunity to work with materials hands-on, thus promoting their ability to observe, discuss, and develop "Language Experience" with the written word – by the guidance of our staff.

Conclusions they draw based on observations they make while interacting with hand on materials are retained as solidly learned "facts" and details their own brains store.

This is information that is retrieved later on in life when a situation calls for making any necessary judgment!

"Judgment" we make in life is based on experience – if you have no experience to draw from – then you have no tools to make sound judgments with – do you?!

Experience and observation lead to the ability to brainstorm and have ideas that create plans to be implemented – "plans" that solve personal problems – as well as community, and "world" problems!

We want to train the future leaders how to think for themselves – not follow others!

Our center provides children the opportunity to think, plan, and do – through interactive learning experiences –

they do not just "sit and write", or recite "en mass" –

but they do write when they have something to express – which inevitably comes from something they have created in art or made with dough or blocks – or seen in a book – etc...

And –

when they express the desire to put their thoughts in writing –

we help them to do that by "language experience" methodologies that are again, "age appropriate"...

If children's minds are empty of simple information that should have been learned from hands-on experiences in early childhood – they have nothing to retrieve – and make decisions with as "experience" – do they?!

Thus future and potential ability to learn is already doomed to remediating what they should have learned through participant observation in preschool!

If all you want is to have your child "trace" letters and their name in a notebook – that's not age appropriate, nor is it "us"!

As another simple example in implementation of multiple intelligence/readiness skills integration –

we use "Block Areas" to initiate concepts of shape, area, perimeter, dimension, weight, and spatial concepts – creativity – body awareness – as well as integrating the process of socialization and cooperative/collaborative learning skills.

When children play with blocks – they observe math concepts such as – two triangles make a square, two squares make a rectangle – etc…

Later – when they study geometry formally, in "big school" – they will be that much more ahead of the game – for having developed this "schemata" through their own hands – on experience, by doing hands on activities that allow them to learn concepts by experience, now!

They also develop their brains ability to control their body (body awareness) while they learn to handle the blocks by the necessity of moving their fingers to adjust to the size weight and shape of each type of block – this is an eye hand coordination skill as well as motor coordination –

all of these skills are something the brain is in charge of – because in order for a child to be able to learn to write – it's really the brain that controls the body –

children that do these activities earlier –

write on their own, earlier –

then children that have not done these activities – because their brains have acquired this skill through age appropriate methods!

When we play with blocks – all of these skills are integrated – but additionally we make "Language Experience" charts for the children by recording what they say about what they have made in the block area –

thus we provide the written word on paper – they get to see what they have personally said "in print"!

Eventually through exposure – this becomes another vehicle for them to learn how to read "by sight" – and by their own experience!

Reading and learning become more successfully mastered with a little "fun"!

These concepts are the methods of such long studied educational leaders as Piaget–Garner, and Vygotsky.

However – they are now considered to be more valid than ever, with the advent of brain information researched using PET scan studies only available in recent technology that show how the brain of a child works.

Studies indicate that when children learn by their own experience – and through their own "physical act of doing" – their brain cells multiply – and they are ready to formally learn in "big school" because they enter better prepared to do so! We consider it our job to solidify the "better prepared to formally learn" part!

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Why we promote age appropriate teaching methods at our center:

Age appropriate methods are important because they elevate a child starting from the level they are on, to begin with –

some centers advertise themselves as "challenging" a child to reach their fullest potential –

but the word "challenge" implies the causation of stress due to forcing a child to do something they have not yet developed the skills to do in the first place!

You cannot sit down and write – if your hands cannot hold the pencil to begin with –

developmentally – by using age appropriate crayon sizes – paint brushes – and markers – while given ongoing opportunities to "draw" –

a normal child's eye sends a message to the brain –

and the brain eventually sends a message to the hand –

to turn to correctly hold a pencil or crayon to be able to write!

This is called eye hand coordination – as well as fine motor control!

In the developmental process –

children need to be able to handle (play with) a wide variety of materials that promote the brain to function –

based on cues it receives from the eyes and the hands at the same time (or other parts of the body).

Forcing a child to sit and write –

skips over the proper mode of development –

the only results from that are stress and anxiety disorders – along with ADD/ADHD….

To explain how the brain of a child works "simply" –

• at the onset of a "stressor" –
• such as force – teaching something a child cannot really understand at an early age (such as "phonics" – )

results in making a child feel "helpless" or confused –

"confusion" results in the development of stress hormones that cause the behavioral presentation of "tuning out" –

meaning – they do not pay attention...

If this methodology is pervasive and ongoing – this becomes one of the many reasons ADD/ADHD develop in children today.

Stress hormones caused by inappropriate forced teaching methods lead to one potential reason of ADD/ADHD – as well as other anxiety based disorders (stuttering, bedwetting – eating disorders – dislike of school – social phobias – etc.)
No one under stress or in a state of fearful confusion ever learns anything...except to hate to do math or spelling, forever!

"Bad" early childhood teaching methods seem to be the roots of many adult anxiety disorders – so it is said!

If you force children to learn age inappropriate things – the brain tunes out to save itself from stress hormones caused by the brain perceiving "helplessness" and confusion – which do occur when you force children to learn something they are not age – ready for – like Phonics...this is fact, not "here say".

In our center – we do things that are age appropriate – so that we do not cause these in – appropriate attentiveness/attention span issues.

We teach by using materials that children enjoy and therefore information and skills are retained with memories of fun and joy – to add to the experience of learning, as well.

Skills concepts must go hand in hand with pleasurable experiences – or they fail to meet the needs of the children altogether.

So –

our center applies age appropriate teaching methods such as interactive play –

with "readiness skills" – goals –

such as eye hand coordination – body awareness –

along with materials that solidify concepts like shapes, colors, phonemic awareness, writing, reading, counting, or units of measurement – etc.

Then children learn on their own level – and remember what they have learned because it was done with pleasant memories instead of stressful force!

As per City and State guidelines – we do not use the TV as a babysitter, nor as a "tool" for "educational purposes".

Because – watching the ABC's dance across a computer, or DVD /TV screen – does not enhance a child's brain!

But – interactive, hands-on participation with activities that allow a child to observe – think, plan and do – does!

Social – emotional components:

Included in availability and implementation of hands on activities facilitating concepts and skills through play –

is the social – emotional experience from the learning process itself!

At our center, children develop the ability to interact with others –

they learn how to work alone or in a collaboration/ "team".

Children should be comfortable in both types of settings – because that is the way real life is, sometimes we work alone – and sometimes we don't!

Since we do not force children to work "en mass," doing the same thing at the same time –

children develop the ability to see who they are as an individual – and how to be themselves in a group – how to modify or adjust their own behavior.

With such a solid foundation of the ability to make judgments based on social emotional and experiential skills learned by their own interactivity –

we help nurture a happy, well adjusted child that potentially grows up to know how to solve their own problems, and has some skills to ability to prevent their own anxiety and frustration as adults as well…

If all children do is sit and "do busy work" such as being forced to " trace letters" that they do not have a comprehension of meaning anything in the first place – or their names –

then the experiential knowledge is lost, and their brain cells do not flourish and grow..

To summarize "us":

Children learn readiness skills and beyond – through interactivity and experiential learning that provides an integration of multiple intelligence settings to promote creativity as well as social / emotional skills that enhance self esteem and self awareness.

Children's own ideas and verbal skills are encouraged and integrated by introducing the children to their words in print – this the reading readiness process at its most potent promotion!

Our uniqueness here is to enhance a child's ability to think on their own, create ideas – and the motivation to attempt to implement their plans with confidence and determination, without social anxiety – and with the desire to read and to write expressively, while thinking creatively!

We attempt to do this by integrating activities that promote multiple intelligence, and readiness, with confidence and emotional maturity – simply because –

we are the busy little bees that want to be the smartest and happiest bees ever !!!

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