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 [...]
Supporting Your Two-Year-Old As They Discover Their World
Our Day Early Learning program for two-year-olds provides fun learning experiences that encourage your older toddler to explore their environment and interact with their peers and teachers.
Curriculum for Two-Year-Olds
All Day Early Learning toddler classrooms utilize The Creative Curriculum, a research-based early child care and education curriculum. At this age, your child is learning at a rapid rate, and as they grow and develop, the teacher adapts the curriculum, as well as the environment to meet both your child’s needs as well as their interests. Each classroom has a lesson plan created weekly, with activities individualized to the specific needs of each child in the classroom. Each activity on the lesson plan is purposeful and intentionally planned based on the teachers’ observations of each child in the classroom.
Toddlers are always absorbing language, which is why a classroom rich in language is important.
To help develop language and literacy skills, teachers:
- Describe what they are doing as well as what the child is doing, so that children will hear more language and connect words to actions.
- Create a print-rich classroom environment with labeled materials to allow children to begin to understand that print conveys meaning.
- Read aloud multiple times a day, as well as allow independent exploration of books.
- Ask questions about books, and encourage interaction during reading.
- Allow children opportunities to tell a story.
- Sing songs/rhymes daily.
- Encourage pretend play and participation with other children.
- Allow opportunities to experiment with writing materials, and valuing scribbles.
- Encourage children to dictate a story or description of what they are creating.
Math is more than counting and recognizing numbers – teachers incorporate math into everyday activities.
To introduce early math concepts, teachers:
- Use math words such as heavy and light, big and small, long and short, and more or less to help children begin to understand math concepts.
- Provide opportunities to count while touching a variety of objects. For example, “How many cows do we have in the block area?”
- Provide opportunities to explain if something is more or less, first or last. For example, “Is that more or less than the number of sheep we have in the block area?”
- Provide opportunities to complete simple patterning activities with materials like lacing beads or pop beads.
- Allow independent exploration of puzzles and sorting materials.
- Allow measurement using materials in the classrooms. For example, “How many blocks does it take to match how long _____is?”
- Encourage persistence even when children get frustrated.
Young children are natural scientists who explore their world whenever the opportunity arises.
Teacher guidance and structure expands their curiosity and activities into something more scientific, to practice science. As children investigate, they acquire knowledge that explains the world around them in a process known as scientific inquiry. To introduce science concepts, teachers:
- Provide opportunities to explore a variety of materials and tools in a sensory table, and ask questions that encourage children to predict what will happen if ____.
- Provide opportunities to use active exploration to solve a problem and discuss if the solution was successful.
- Provide opportunities to explore light and shadows.
- Provide opportunities to observe and describe weather and seasonal changes.
- Introduce activities and conversations that help children name and describe body parts.
We include creative arts in our programming to provide a range of activities for children to express themselves.
Creative arts engage children’s minds, bodies, and senses. The arts invite children to listen to, observe, discuss, move, and imagine. To encourage creative arts exploration, teachers:
- Offer a variety of recorded music to listen and move freely to.
- Allow opportunities to explore a variety of musical instruments independently.
- Allow ongoing exploration of a wide variety of age-appropriate art materials and tools including crayons, markers, paint, glue, play dough, etc.
- Offer opportunities to participate in pretend or imaginative play in the dramatic play area, as well as with puppets and other people or animal figures.
Social emotional skills are essential in school.
Self-regulation and conflict resolution skills lead to a positive sense of self and makes it easier for children to build relationships with others. To develop strong social-emotional skills, teachers:
- Model empathy and encourage children to imitate comforting behaviors.
- Model impulse control, and validate children’s emotions, as well as model alternative reactions that will allow children to self-soothe in the future.
- Provide children with the words to express both positive or negative emotions.
- Allow children opportunities to demonstrate independence and do some self-care routines themselves.
- Provide a consistent daily schedule and routine.
- Model conflict resolution, and provide children with words to use instead of physical actions.
Large muscle development is important at this age, to practice skills and to lay the foundation for an active, healthy lifestyle.
Small muscle development is important as well, to develop hand-eye coordination and to ensure their hand muscles are strong as they begin to write. To boost physical growth, teachers:
- Encourage children to use spoons or forks to feed themselves instead of fingers.
- Offer opportunities to participate in physical play both indoors on climbers or tunnels, and outdoors on playground equipment.
- Support children to dress or undress themselves, both when needed with their own clothes, as well as in the dramatic play center.
- Introduce different writing materials like crayons or markers for children to practice making marks on paper.
Two-Year-Old Learning Environments
Children spend most of the day in our learning centers, which are stations set up in each classroom. In centers, children choose activities from purposely-planned play experiences. Teachers intentionally create environments and provide appropriate learning materials to allow your child to explore and learn on their own, as well as provide support in learning new skills. In our two-year-old classrooms you will see several different learning centers such as art, science, dramatic play, library, blocks, puzzles and more.
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*In transition-to-preschool rooms where all children are more than 30 months of age, the ratio changes to one teacher for every seven children, with a maximum of two teachers and 14 children.
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. Toddler teachers are trained in responsive caregiving. That means they work to build a trusting relationship with each child, provide individualized care to each child, and develop partnerships with families. All toddlers 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 in order 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 (ASQ) 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.
