OUR CREATIVE
CURRICULUM
KIDS HAVEN, by Sandy incorporates the newly expanded program “The Creative Curriculum” to help our teachers plan and implement a rich, developmentally appropriate program that uses best practices and reflects how young children develop individually and learn inside and outside of their classrooms. The Creative Curriculum is a forward thinking, comprehensive research-based and research proven curriculum that gives our staff foundational resources to build a high quality program. It is of utmost importance to understand not only how children develop and learn, but also to understand their individual differences. Children thrive when they are treated with genuine kindness, love, and respect, and when they have teachers who individualize their care and teaching. We want your children to be successful in school and ready for life!
We encourage warm and loving relationships with infants to positively influence their development and learning. Their coos, gurgles and daily accomplishments become more meaningful when encouraged and shared with trusted, loving caregivers. “Tummy time” is another daily practice to encourage infants to strengthen their arms and legs. This is a time when smiles of recognition become giggles of delight and busy feet transition from crawling to walking.
At the Toddler level we begin to incorporate more learning time to encourage exploration of art, music, science activities, literacy through story time and gross motor activities for eye-hand coordination. We encourage simple tasks such as washing hands, sitting at the table with friends, playing together with others in learning centers, and picking up toys. Recognition of colors, shapes and letters will also be introduced at this level through story time and daily activities.
Two year olds love exploration! We begin to teach more structure in the two-year-old classroom through play and discovery activities. Circle time for daily instruction of numbers, letters, colors, shapes, story time and music is incorporated into their schedule. More independent practices are encouraged throughout the day such as hand washing, craft activities, clean up time and potty training. Gross motor skills to improve eye-hand coordination are also practiced in the classroom and in our spacious multi-purpose room.
Implementing awareness of a daily routine and even more independence begins in the three-year-old classroom. At this age we encourage the children to accept responsibilities throughout the day such as being line leader, teacher’s helper, and lunch helper. Investigations on certain topics like “buildings” help the children learn through questions and discoveries. Circle time is incorporated to study the calendar, weather, letter and number of the week, and the “Investigation” topic of the week. Lots of student assessments and interactions between the teacher and students help to further develop their individual educational progression.
In addition to the above classroom instruction, our focus for the four-year-old students is to prepare them mentally and physically for kindergarten. At this level we will continue to measure your child’s individual progression of development and learning with observations and teacher assessments. Small groups are formed according to your child’s progress after teacher assessments are completed. This is to help your child learn according to his/her intellectual level. We highly encourage your children to accomplish life skills such as tying shoes, putting on and taking off coats/jackets, washing hands, and knowing their address and phone numbers. Recognizing and writing upper and lower case letters, recognizing shapes and colors, recognizing and writing numbers, and participating in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) projects are skills they will experience on a daily basis. Reading, the recognition of small words, and printing and recognizing the student’s names are also incorporated into our Kinder-Prep Class instruction time.