(must be two by Sept. 30th)
This part-time program is Monday, Wednesday and Friday 8:00 am until 12:00 pm only.
The curriculum for the two year old program is based on meeting the needs of the whole child–physical, emotional, social, intellectual, and spiritual. It is assumed that most two-year-olds are concrete learners, tend to approach situations in a global rather than a sequential manner, and are prone to be haptic (kinesthetic-tactile) learners.
The developmental tasks of the year between twenty-four and thirty-six months of age include mastery of large muscles and the rudimentary control of small muscles, the addition of approximately 800 words to the vocabulary along with the ability to form complete sentences, the ability to interact with peers and adults in a manner acceptable to the culture, identification, and understanding of emotional responses of themselves and others, and the mastery of toilet training. The children in this program must be walking and eating table foods independently. In order for children to be promoted to the three-year-old class, they must be out of diapers.
To accomplish these tasks, an integrated program based on a variety of individual and group activities has been implemented.
• Free play provides opportunities for children to interact with each other and with teachers. Negotiating skills involving sharing toys and space, taking turns, handling emotions, and making choices about play are practiced.
• Learning centers give children many opportunities to explore their environment and learn and practice new cognitive skills including problem solving, matching, patterning, sorting and classifying, identifying, eye-hand coordination, and counting.
• Group times–stories and music–help children with cognitive skills such as listening and following directions as they sing songs, hear stories, and play games.
• Art projects encourage creativity while giving children a time to enjoy and experience painting, gluing, markers, scissors, clay, etc.
• Cooking experiences give children a chance to participate in the activities of their world.
• Outdoor play provides a time for muscle development and practice of social skills.
All of these activities take place in an atmosphere of love and warmth in classes taught by early childhood teachers. School, after all, should be FUN!