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St. Charles Daycare Ministry 2224 E. Third Street. Bloomington, Indiana, 47401 (812) 331-6740 |
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Questions about this website, contact the webmaster. Page last updated: 3/23/09 |
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At St. Charles, we strive to provide an atmosphere that is safe, enjoyable and nurturing for your child. A nurturing environment is one that provides daily experiences to promote physical, social, emotional and cognitive development. We believe in working with your child to stimulate their development in these areas. We believe that children should be children, and that children should be free to play as they learn. We believe that a child’s day should be structured with time for play, learning and rest. We believe that children need hugs as much as they need to learn their ABCs. |
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The curriculum has two cooperating elements. First is the use of weekly themes which span across the entire daycare. In any given week, our classes will all be learning about the same topics. Each classroom’s team of teachers creates lessons that are suited for the age of their students, based on that week’s theme. Please take a moment to look at our calendar of weekly themes. Weekly themes alone are not sufficient to provide the experiences your child needs. Activities and lessons need to focus on developing the foundations of learning that will benefit them when they enter the challenging world of formal schooling. We have chosen to use a program called “Foundations to the Indiana Academic Standards”. This is a program developed by a panel of educators, developmental specialists and parents across the state of Indiana. Simply put, the “Foundations” are used a framework by our teachers to design their lessons and activities. With the “Foundations” as a guide, we can focus lessons into developing skills in any of the following skills: language, mathematics, science, social studies, physical education, music and visual arts. To many, it may seem unbelievable that we could intend to teach math or social studies to children between the ages of infancy and five years. This is where the “Foundations” program really shines. It challenges educators and parents to think of these large subject areas, not in terms of their own experiences from grade school and beyond, but from the viewpoint of a child. Here are two examples: 1) How could you teach a 2 year old child social studies? At its basest level social studies is about learning how people interact in our world, and what the world looks like outside of their house, their school, their town. For a two year old, this would mean learning how to help others in the classroom, be a part of a group activity, do classroom chores, talk about the weather every day, learn about distance between places (near and far), share with classmates, take turns and work together. 2) Can you teach a two year old geometry? Yes, if you think of what geometry is in the world of a young child. Give a child a group of nesting blocks. Place a favorite toy inside, outside, behind and on top of a large cup. Let a child feel and manipulate different shapes. All these activities are given a child a chance to develop spatial understanding, a fundamental of the geometry they will begin to see in formal schooling. Such activities are clearly nothing groundbreaking in the play-filled world of a child. What is important about the “Foundations” program is that we are focusing the play time and lesson time to give children experiences in as many of these foundational areas as we can. The “Foundations” are an excellent set of guidelines to keep our teachers focused on providing experiences the children under our care need to have. For further information on the Foundations, follow this link or ask to see the resources we have on hand. |
