Northwoods Childcare Development Center
About Us
Learning through Play
Our child care program approach includes a variety of opportunities for our children to learn by experiencing concepts and ideas. Within our classrooms, large and small group learning time include songs, games, language development, dramatic play, fine and gross motor activities, and more.
NAEYC How Play Connects to Learning
Curriculum
"Where Learning and Fun are One" The philosophy behind our curriculum is that young children learn best by experiencing hand-on activities. We follow the Reggio Emilio approach to learning. Our teachers create and plan lessons to meet each child's developmental goals and objectives. We provide developmentally appropriate practices, daily for the children.
Developmentally appropriate means making curriculum lessons and other decisions that affect children based on what they are able to do cognitively, physically, and emotionally at a certain age. Of course, not all children develop at the same rate, so often there is a range of abilities that are considered developmentally appropriate for each age and child. Developmentally appropriate skills for one child may be very different than that of another child. in the same classroom so teachers sometimes make small and sometimes large changes to the way they teach concepts to different children. We believe learning isn't just repeating what someone else says; it requires active thinking and experimenting to find out how things work and to learn to first-hand about the world we live in.
Many of our lesson plans and learning centers are theme-based in order to spark excitement. By rotating and introducing new plans and projects we provide variety. The same applies to our classroom environments. We find that working to adjust the layout periodically, we help kids avoid boredom. We don't hold back when it comes to providing a wide array of materials and supplies, instead we seek out the latest learning tools and toys. Come see us in action with a tour!
The center's "Creative Play" and "School Age Framework Curriculum" aligns with Wisconsin Model and Early Learning Standards "WMELS" guiding principles and reflects their 5 domains of our learning and development. The most important goal of our curriculum is to help children become enthusiastic learners. This means encouraging children to become active and creative explorers who are not afraid to try out their new ideas and to think their own thoughts.
Our goal is to help children become independent, self-confident, and inquisitive learners. We're teaching them how to learn, all through their lives. We're allowing them to learn at their own pace and in ways that are best for them. We're giving the children good habits and attitudes, particularly a positive sense of themselves, which will make a difference throughout their lives.
Our curriculum identifies goals in all areas of development:
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Social: to help children feel comfortable, trust their new environment, make friends and feel they are part of the group.
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Emotional: to help children experience pride and self-confidence, develop independence and self-control, and have a positive attitude toward life.
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Cognitive: to help children become confident learners by letting the, try out their own ideas and experience success, become confident learners, by letting them try out their own ability to solve problems, ask questions, and use works to describe their ideas, observations and feelings.
A copy of the center license, condition stipulations, compliance/non-compliance, statements and administrative chain of command is posted in the entryway of our main center daycare. Also, in our entryway is a bulletin board for parental notices and other communication.
We utilize Ages and Stages services for families whose child might need developmental help, speech and language therapy, physical or occupational therapy. Nearly four decades of research and user feedback have shaped ASQ®. It’s designed to fit in with early childhood routines and engage parents.
The Portage Guide 3 is a developmental tool we use at the center. It has activities to enhance your child and the materials satisfy the assessment and curriculum planning needs of center-based programs, such as ours. This serves children from birth to six years, infants through preschool age.
Conscious Discipline focuses on safety, connection and problem solving. Our staff has recently completed a Conscience Development training seminar and will continue to learn more. We found that this approach is going to equip us to better integrate social-emotional learning, discipline and self-regulation and spend less time policing behavior with more time teaching vital life skills.
We apply the fundamentals of NAEYC DAP Developmentally Appropriate Practice in our classrooms. The overall goal for using DAP is to support excellence in early childhood education through decision-making based on knowledge about individual children and child development principles combined with knowledge of effective early learning practices.
The five essential guidelines for effective teaching in DAP are:
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Creating a caring community of learners.
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Teaching to enhance development and learning.
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Planning curriculum to achieve important goals.
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Assessing children's development and learning.
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Establishing reciprocal relationships with family.