Developmental Intervention Group
12 Months-3 Years
The role of play in a child's development is very essential and important. It helps with forming attachment, communicating actively with others and building relationships as well as improving problem solving skills. Playgroup therapy focuses on the child's strengths and adapts them into a social setting to help a child succeed and feel comfortable and empowered within this setting.
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Children focus on the fun and are not aware that their whole sensory system is being stimulated to make way for many learning opportunities and meaningful moments.
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The key for play therapy is shared interaction and that is what they are exposed to and presented with every time they attend playgroup.
Infants and One's
Children are sponges ready to absorb all the information their environment has to offer. Our infant and One year old classes focus on sensory development as well as early social skills and regulating emotions. By offering open-ended, natural materials, our younger ages are able to explore with all of their senses.
They'll spend time exploring the various materials in their classes, take trips outside to experience what nature has to offer, as well as spend parts of their day in our Sensory Light Room and our Sensory and Gross Motor Space.
Two's
As your child grows in a safe and comfortable environment they are more open to take risks and be more autonomous. Independence becomes an evident milestone for two year olds. As they discover all the things they can do they want to do more things for themselves such as eating, washing hands, dressing themselves, and learning to use the toilet. Through various sensorial, fine motor, and gross motor experiences teachers encourage children to become self-sufficient. While your child becomes more vocal and begins to put sentences together, our teachers create opportunities for conversations to help expand your child’s comprehension and literacy skills.
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The environment is arranged so that children are exposed to their written name, establish a daily flow, create peer relationships, understand emotions and start to express their thoughts and ideas in simple sentences. By encouraging communication between the children they begin to understand the dynamics of a classroom community.
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Our educators share stories that help build new vocabulary and also instill the interest to read. The teachers connect stories with objects and events in children’s lives so that they may begin to understand that print and pictures have a meaning.
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A variety of opportunities are offered for children to experiment with art and drawing as they are able to make lines, zigzags, make a series of scribbles and begin to give meaning to the symbols they create. Educators create a rich environment to offer various possibilities to recognize common symbols, some letters, sometimes the first letter of their names, and drawing lines that begin looking like letters and shapes.
Educators begin to ask open-ended questions and plan brainstorming discussions to encourage children to verbalize their ideas and promote conversations amongst them. During these discussions the teachers take notes or make recordings to document children’s thinking. As children create theories and ask questions projects begin to emerge. Through projects children develop cognitive skills such as problem solving, collaboration, understanding cause and effect, sharing and how to be a member of a group.
Three to Five
Children are interested in finding out how everything works. At this stage your child will develop greater self-control and independence and enjoy trying new experiences. Since their vocabulary and pronunciation increases they begin communicating in more complex and compound sentences. Three to five year olds frequently initiate conversations and are less likely to change the subject of conversation to only the areas of personal interest since they are more interested in collaborating and sharing. Because they feel confident to express themselves verbally, they frequently exchange ideas and suggestions.
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Our teachers invite the children to participate in creating projections and in revisiting their experiences through photographs, discussions, videos, or voice recordings. Children are also encouraged to get involved during the documentation process and their perspectives are written down and become part of these records.
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The children are constructing their knowledge of written language. They want to know what words in their environment say and are able to recognize many letters. By the end of this year many children understand that letters represent the sounds in spoken words and may associate some letters with their sounds. Most children also write some legible letters and know that writing goes from left-to-right and top to bottom. When your child draws or paints they begin to represent detailed aspects of their imagination as well as begin to incorporate letters and words to describe them.
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Your child’s capacity for learning math concepts increases at this age. They can successfully use language to compare and describe objects and shapes. Children in this class know days of the week, months and the seasons.
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They are able to walk, climb, jump, hop, skip, march and gallop skillfully at this age. They have also improved their ability to throw, catch, kick and bounce balls. They enjoy dancing and are able to move rhythmically and easily. Their fine motor skills have also improved therefore supporting their ability to hold writing tools. As their hand-eye coordination develops, dressing and undressing themselves is mastered.
Three to five year olds are very curious and use their imaginations to help understand the world around them. They become complex thinkers through predictions, and their teachers provide supportive information and opportunities for experimentations of trial and error observations.
Our teachers value and respect these abilities and offer opportunities to explore in spaces that invite the children to utilize the collection of data and graphing, they begin to use science and engineering practices to better understand their communities, economic and ecosystems as well as the physical earth in which they exist. As the children engage in different explorations where their interests are taken into account, the teachers facilitate learning through questions and providing appropriate tools and materials that will further their research.