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For each age group we focus on the following skill sets:
- Social and Emotional Skills
- Work Habits and Listening/Behavioral Skills
- Fine and Large Motor Skills
- Verbal Skills and Speech/Vocabulary Development
- Self-Reliance and Practical Skills
- Reading Readiness
- Math Readiness
- Music Appreciation and
- Art Appreciation
Social and Emotional Skills
From the infant days we teach each child to respect the other children property and play space, respect teacher authority and classroom rules,
to be able to control his/her emotions and adequately respond to teachers or parents guidance. This set of skills is not achieved by
classroom time. This process requires constant monitoring and correcting or influencing child behavior and guiding the child to the
behavior that we see appropriate. We will work on this skill with the child through his/her entire life at Parent's Choice For Kids.
All children need reminders that we need to share our play space with the friends, respect our teachers authority and rules of elderly,
and follow their directions. The main method of controlling the discipline and behavior / emotional skills at Parents Choice For Kids
is the redirection process.
If a child has a hard time following the direction or is being rough with his/her friends we will redirect that child activity
to try to find something that he/she would be interested in doing. If the redirection process continuously fails to work then
we would resort to a time-out. The time-out process at Parents Choice For Kids would not last longer than one minute per year
of child age. In other words, a two year old would not have a time out that is longer then two minutes.
During a time-out a child would never be separated from his class/classroom, and a teacher or Genna/Inna would sit down with
him/her and explain what went wrong and why they are not allowed to play with his/her friends.
Work Habits and Listening/Behavioral Skills
Work Habits and Listening/ Behavioral Skill set is another skill set that is not achieved during the classroom time, and it is another skill set
that we focus on during child entire life at Parent’s Choice For Kids. To teach this skill set we focus on the child’s ability to participate
in the group activities, follow teachers directions and suggestions in completing art or any other projects.
Also, we try to motivate children natural curiosity, and encourage them to ask questions and make their own choices.
For infants and toddlers we will offer them a choice of different levels of assistance with their art projects and other activities.
Also, we will offer different sensory activities like playing with water or rice, or do treasure hunts to engage their curiosity.
For the 3 year olds and younger preschoolers, we would expect a little bit more independence in completing their different projects.
Rather then providing a physical help to complete an activity we will offer verbal guidance or showing an example of how a certain thing
should be done.
Fine and Large Motor Skills
This is definitely a taught skill, and it is dependent on each individual child development.
We teach our infants and toddlers to properly hold eating utensils and cups and being independent during the feeding process;
our meals are served family style. Parent’s Choice For Kids Teachers would serve meal to each child and guide him/her how to be able to wash
his/her hands prior to eating, and how to hold spoon and use it to eat, how to hold a cup (real cup or “Sippy” cup) with both hands and prevent spills.
We start introducing ways to properly hold crayons, pens and pencils, and using scissors.
We would use double handed scissors that allow teacher to hold it with the child at the same time.
With this age group we work on assembling basic puzzles (3 to 5 pieces)
Using glue and pasting and applying glitter;
Shaping play dough and clay, and building with blocks and legos;
Introducing to putting their own clothing, and manipulating zippers, buttons and snaps
For the large or gross motor skills, Parent’s Choice For Kids has a very large playground area and a large muscle room. That is where we can practice our jumping and balancing skills, and the ability to throw and kick ball.
For the 3-year olds we typically focus on the same skills as the 2-year olds. However, at that time we expect them to master their ability to hold feeding utensils and cups, and significantly progress with the other motor skills. Also, we start teaching them to complete drawn pictures and to be able to trace the lines, stay within the lines when coloring objects, and follow dotted lines to complete the pattern. The puzzle sets are becoming more and more complex, as we have a variety of puzzles from about 5-6 pieces to about 100 pieces.
At the age of 4-years old,
We start introducing children to more challenging cutting patterns. They no longer should be able to cut just a straight line but we teach them to follow the drawn lines for the circles, ovals and etc.
We start focusing on the ability to handle and manipulate very small pieces (jewelry like beads, snaps, and zippers), and the ability to tie their own shoes.
We teach them to perform forward somersault, gallop and take turns in the group games (softball, basketball, kickball, soccer and hockey)
Verbal Skills and Speech/Vocabulary Development
We start teaching our infants and toddlers the ability to speak clearly and form their sentences;
combine words, name and identify things, answer questions and take turns while speaking in groups.
Essentially, we teach them using language, rather then physical signs to express their wants and needs.
This is done thru using different flash cards to identify objects, multiple story times and most importantly through communicating with a child to build their vocabulary to express their needs.
As a group our toddlers learn that they are expected to sit quietly during the group time,
Use words to identify objects and express their needs.
By the age of 3-years old we expect a child to be able to identify objects around them and form basic sentences.
We will teach the child to be able to form more complex sentences, and increase his/her vocabulary thru multiple story times.
In addition, we start “Show and Share” days every Wednesday during the school year. For these days, every child would bring a toy or a special item from home, and we would encourage him/her to talk about it.
At the age of about 3-years old we also start introducing children to foreign and sign languages.
They become aware that some people speak differently and express themselves differently and we teach them basics of Spanish vocabulary (numbers, colors, shapes).
At age 4-years old, we continue to build their English and Spanish vocabulary, and learn more different signs in the sign language.
At this age, our story times become more involved, since the introduction of the chapter books concept.
Also, we start teaching them to be able to paraphrase and tell us back the contents of the story that we just read.
Self-Reliance and Practical Skills
The most important practical skill that we teach our infants and toddlers is the ability to go to the bathroom.
Our goal is that by the age of 2.5 years old child should be aware of his/her own body needs and should be able to express them to us.
We reinforce that continuously until child is completely potty trained.
For the 2-year olds, in addition to potty training, we start teaching children ability to put their own jackets, shoes and hats.
As well as, the ability to eat without help. We teach our 2-year olds ability to recognize all of the body parts and be able to tell their
own first and last name.
For the 3-years olds, we continue reinforcing potty training; we continue teaching them to manipulate buttons and snaps, and master putting on their coats and clothes. We continue reinforcing the concept of personal hygiene, and introduce them to teeth brushing and fully taking care of themselves in the bathroom.
For the 4-year olds we perfect their knowledge of their name, parents names, ability to write and spell their own name and their friends name.
Reading Readiness
Reading readiness is the group time taught process. In addition, we reinforce it during the art projects and all other activities.
Our infants and toddlers learn to:
Recognizing and naming colors;
Recognizing letters and associating letters with objects (“A” for apple, “B” for Boat, and etc.)
We introduce the concept of phonetics and the sounds that each letter make;
For the 3-year olds we reinforce understanding of colors and continue awareness of the ABC’s and letters and objects associations;
We teach them to spell and start writing their own name and recognize the letter patterns of their name and friends names (Name collage or name puzzle), and
Continue building their phonetic awareness of each letter sound;
We introduce them to the writing skill by copying the words from the set of flash cards and tracing letters of the workbooks.
For our 4-year olds we expect the knowledge of the alphabet, and we teach the ability to recognize UPPER and lower case letters;
Teach the ability to sound the UPPER and the lower case letters;
Teach to print neatly their own name, and names of their friends;
Teach them visual and written discrimination (same / different, hot / cold) and
Teach them the ability to classify objects (belongs / does not belong) and group objects (vehicles are cars, trucks, motorcycles, etc.)
Recognizing parts of the words and whole words, and reading the basic words (like Hat, Cat, Car)
Math Readiness
As well as reading readiness, math readiness is a taught skill. We practice it during group time as well as during the art projects and all the other activities. Even, when we are counting kids when coming back from playground/muscle room, we are counting out loud with the group 1,2,3 … in order to reinforce the numbers sequence.
Our infants and toddlers learn to recognize Numbers from 1 to 10, recognize Basic Shapes and the basis of the calendar and week and month patterns;
Our 3-year olds learn to recognize Numbers from 1 to 30, master recognizing Basic Shapes, and identify shapes and numbers of objects in the worlds around us.
As well as working on improving understanding of the calendar and week and month patterns;
The 4-year olds are taught:
Counting individual numbers from 1-200;
Counting numbers in bundles of 5 and 10;
Counting objects in a set;
Matching numerals to a set
Recognize shapes
Reinforcing shapes in our environment
Identifying size differences (big, little)
Sequencing different sizes (small, smaller smallest)
Categorizing objects by shape, color, size, texture
Ability to tell time (things that tell time, length of time) along with mastering of the calendar and week and month patterns;
Ability to recognize money (identifying money, amount of money)
Different Measurements (things that measure)
Music and Art Appreciation
We teach our infants and toddlers:
To participate in group singing;
To enjoy doing musical activities;
To participate in group art activities and to use his/her art materials properly;
To help cleaning up after his/her art projects;
In addition to the activities that 2-year old perform, the 3-year old are encouraged to learn to repeat rhythmic patterns in music;
We teach the 4-year olds different group performance and ability to perform in front of the public (singing songs, telling stories and demonstrating their art skills)
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