Preparing for Your Parent Teacher Conference
What to expect and what to ask in your parent teacher conference It may seem surprising to have a parent teacher conference when your child is so young, but we believe it’s important to check in [...]
Encouraging Your One Year Old’s Curiosity
Our Day Early Learning program for one-year-olds provides fun learning experiences that encourage your young toddler to explore their environment and interact with peers and teachers. Children in the one-year-old classroom are introduced to different types of learning experiences based on their individual developmental needs and interests.
Curriculum for One-Year-Olds
All Day Early Learning toddler classrooms utilize The Creative Curriculum, a research-based early child care and education curriculum. Children between the ages of one and two years old learn at a rapid rate. So, as your child grows, the curriculum does too.
Each classroom has an individualized lesson plan posted every week. Each activity on the lesson plan is purposeful and planned intentionally for each child in that classroom.
To help develop language and literacy skills, teachers:
- Share songs and finger-plays with rhyme and repetition.
- Use self-talk throughout the day to boost vocabulary and model language skills. For example, “I’m going to wash my hands. I’ll be right back.”
- Read books and tell stories about pictures throughout the day, as well as create opportunities for children to explore books independently.
- Provide opportunities for children to explore drawing, writing and painting as a way of communicating.
To introduce early math concepts, teachers:
- Provide experiences that allow children to begin to understand the concepts of more and less.
- Create opportunities for children to match simple shapes with real objects. For example, “Yes, a bagel is a circle. Do you see anything else around the room that is a circle?”
- Provide a consistent daily schedule, which allows children to know what comes next.
To introduce science concepts, teachers:
- Provide opportunities to explore their environment, both inside and out, and model using the tools necessary for exploration.
- Create opportunities for children to investigate and experience nature and different types of weather.
- Provide labels to different living things children see, including animals as well as children’s own body parts, helping children learn the vocabulary for each of these.
To establish strong social-emotional skills, teachers:
- Create opportunities for children to experiment with different approaches to solve simple problems and conflicts by providing them with the words to say
- Model comforting behaviors, and labeling children’s emotions for all to hear. For example, “Susie is crying she must be feeling sad, so I’m going to go ask if she would like a hug.”
- Provide peer experiences where children have many opportunities to interact with one another throughout the day.
To boost physical growth, teachers:
- Create opportunities both inside the classroom and outside for children to practice movement skills.
- Provide experiences that allow children to further develop coordination and balance.
- Encourage fine motor development by encouraging children to use their hands and fingers in classroom activities, as well as during meal times.
One-Year-Old Learning Environments
Our one-year-old classroom environments are carefully created with developmentally appropriate learning centers and materials. In the toddler classroom, you will find blocks, puzzles, art supplies, dramatic play equipment, sensory tables, a library and more.
Toddlers have the freedom to choose what activities they are interested in. Teachers guide and support their learning throughout those activities, helping them learn new skills and encouraging them to try new experiences.
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Your Toddler’s Teachers
At Day Early Learning, we believe that the foundation to a lifelong love of learning for a child begins with a nurturing relationship with their teachers. Infant teachers are trained in responsive caregiving. That means they work to build a trusting relationship with each child, provide individualized care to each infant, and develop partnerships with families. All infants experience a responsive, sensitive caregiving environment.
Assessing Toddler Development
At Day Early Learning, we believe in the importance of regularly assessing each child’s growth and development. That practice allows us to tailor our lessons and activities to the needs of each individual child. All Day Early Learning centers use several methods to assess each child’s growth and development including weekly observations, an annual Ages and Stages Questionnaire and the ISTAR-KR assessment.
Observations
Each week, you will receive written observations of your child’s development on LifeCubby. These observations are used to help teachers create meaningful lesson plans that will ignite curiosity in your child and help us monitor your child’s growth and learning on a daily basis.
Questionnaire
When parents enroll in our program and each time your child transitions to a new classroom, teachers and parents complete the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ). This tool allows us to help you track your child’s progress in language, problem solving, fine and gross motor, and social-emotional development. It also helps us ensure the right materials and supports are being used to help your child reach the next stage of their development.
ISTAR-KR
In the fall, winter, and spring our teachers complete an overall assessment on your child’s progress using a tool from the Indiana Department of Education called ISTAR-KR (KR=kindergarten readiness). This assessment is aligned to the Indiana kindergarten standards in the areas of English/Language Arts and Mathematics.
Classroom & Staff Assessments
In addition to measuring children’s growth, our learning environments and teaching staff are regularly assessed using classroom observation tools to ensure the highest level of teacher-child interactions. This is important because high-quality environments and teacher-child interactions encourage and promote children’s language, math, vocabulary and social skills.
