Our Goals

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Play, discovery, peer group interaction and exploration are key aspects of the curriculum, which provide learning experience designed to develop the whole child. The classroom provides a learning environment for the children to learn through play, based on interest and curiosity. 

Goals for your child:

 · Feel comfortable

· Feel welcome

· Trust their environment

· Feel part of a group

The children at Square One learns to develop socially by working in small and large groups, by asking their friends or teachers for help through working on projects together and playing with their friends. By making the children feel welcomed and accepted, it becomes easier for them to separate from their parents. Children are encouraged to share with their friends but understand it’s okay if they want to work alone. We discuss the importance of feelings of others and how important it is to respect the activities our peers are working on. If children need help, we encourage them to ask one of their friends. We use books, puppets, games and adult modeling to aid childrens learning skills to develop socially.

We have simple rules that need to be followed. The children will know that they will be supported for doing what is expected of them and if they forget a rule we simply remind them of it. Misbehavior will be addressed individually with the children as it occurs. If there is an ongoing socialization issues, we will have the children discuss ways to resolve the problem in a large group setting. We will explain to them that we have observed a problem, and we will discuss ways to resolve the issue. Instead of telling the children what to do, we want to offer them choices. By doing this the children are learning to make choices for themselves develop self control, self esteem, and learn from the consequences of their actions.

 · Self-confident

· Develop independence

· Develop self-control

· Have a positive attitude toward life

· Increase large muscles

· Increase small muscles 

· Feel confident about what their bodies can do

Daily each child and parent will be greeted with a smile and good morning. This helps the child feel welcome and accepted. Throughout the day the children are encouraged to express their feelings. We enhance their knowledge of feelings through songs and stories. We let the children know its okay to be mad, happy, or sad. Children are encouraged to express their feelings with their friends verbally and we model appropriate ways to express feeling by verbally letting them know I am mad, happy or sad. If children are reluctant to express themselves, we provide guidance. We begin with intrusive methods including redirection, prompts or cues.

Throughout the day we will give hugs and authentic praise for childrens efforts or accomplishments. 

 · To be a confident learner

· Ability to solve problems

· Expand thinking skills

To provide opportunities for your children to develop cognitive skills, we plan activities and experiences that evolve from the childrens interest and their world. All activities and materials are hands on. Children are able to explore similarities and differences, categorize, sort, match, compare, and sequence materials. Children learn to solve problems, share, and work together during worktime. Children are observed daily to see if they are developing cognitively and are ready for new learning opportunities.

Language is developed through adult modeling, communicating with parents and children, through reading stories and singing songs. We provide opportunities for the children to develop listening and language skills through the retelling of stories, engaging in reading books, encouraging children to express their feelings, creating their own stories and through musical activities. On a daily basis we make an effort to talk to each child individually about their families, friends and interest.

The children are encouraged to be creative in several ways. We provide a wide variety of open ended materials for the children to explore and manipulate in the classroom. Children express creativity throughout the day.

The children are developing their large and small muscles through daily and the use of classroom equipment and materials. During group time we provide opportunities for the children to develop their muscle by providing many activities including fingerplays, moving to music and games. We ensure that we acknowledge the diversity in our classroom and include activities that support multicultural experiences for the children. Throughout the day the children are engaged in activities to develop fine motor skills by cutting, glueing, coloring and writing. Additionally we have toys such as pegs, puzzles, and lacing cards for children to manipulate. Large motor skills are enhanced through jumping, running, climbing, playing ball and riding trikes.