_edited.png)
Our Curriculum
Learn
+
Play
+
Grow
There are several early childhood curriculum, however Another Home Daycare & Learning Center has chosen to use the HighScope Curriculum because it is uniquely designed to provide a rich academic foundation while promoting independence, decision making, cooperation, creativity, and problem solving in young children. How? The Curriculum includes learning objectives, effective adult interaction strategies, and assessment measures that help our center ensure a high-quality experience for all learners.
In a HighScope classroom, children are guided to explore, interact, and exercise their creative imagination through purposeful play. Well-prepared teachers support and extend each child’s learning based on their developmental levels, so children enter school ready and eager to learn.
The HighScope Curriculum promotes active, hands-on exploration, and individualized activities based on children’s interests, strengths, and needs. Its practices support children's executive functioning and emotion regulation skills, giving children choices, embedding time for children to recall and reflect on experiences of the day, modeling for and coaching children on how to express and regulate emotions.
Infants and Toddlers
The HighScope Curriculum believes that our youngest learners need to feel safe and supported so they can learn with their whole body and all of their senses. In a HighScope infant and toddler program, teachers focus on developing supportive, trusting relationships with the children in their care. The children are exposed to rich environments where they are encouraged to explore and discover the world around them, and where they engage in experiences designed to support their optimal development in all domains.
In the HighScope Infant-Toddler Curriculum, learning is focused on these six content areas:
-
Approaches to Learning
-
Social and Emotional Development
-
Physical Development and Health
-
Communication, Language, and Literacy
-
Cognitive Development
-
Creative Arts
The HighScope Infant-Toddler classroom offers four key elements:
-
Adult-Child Interaction: Nurturing responsive teachers practice primary caregiving and continuity of care, by scaffolding the individual needs and temperaments of infants and toddlers.
-
Learning Environment: The physical space is safe, flexible, and child oriented to provide comfort and accommodate the changing developmental needs and interests of the earliest learners. With nurturing and responsive caregivers as a home base, infants and toddlers are free to move about, explore materials, exercise creativity, and solve problems.
-
Schedules and Routines: A consistent yet flexible routine that accommodates individual children’s natural rhythms and temperaments, gives infants and toddlers a sense of security and stability that creates trust between the child and teacher, and builds independence as children engage with their environment and the people around them.
-
Observation: Objective observations of children allow teachers to intentionally plan to build on individual and group interests and scaffold development, by supporting what children know while gently extending their learning.
Preschoolers
The HighScope Preschool Curriculum is based on more than 50 years of research on early childhood development, and has been validated by direct evaluation of the curriculum. In a HighScope preschool program, teachers ignite children’s interest in learning by creating an environment that encourages them to explore learning materials and interact with adults and peers. Teachers focus on supporting early learners as they make decisions, build academic skills, develop socially and emotionally, and become part of a classroom community.
In the HighScope Preschool Curriculum, learning is focused on the following eight content areas:
-
Approaches to Learning
-
Social and Emotional Development
-
Physical Development and Health
-
Language, Literacy, and Communication
-
Mathematics
-
Creative Arts
-
Science and Technology
-
Social Studies
The HighScope Preschool Classroom offers four key elements:
-
Adult-Child Interaction: Teachers act as partners, working alongside children and communicating with them both verbally and nonverbally to encourage learning. Key strategies for adult-child interactions are sharing control with children, communicating as a partner with children, scaffolding children’s play, using encouragement instead of praise, and taking a problem-solving approach to supporting children in resolving conflicts.
-
Learning Environment: Classrooms are organized and labeled to promote independence and encourage children to carry out their intentions; and to create an active learning environment, classroom are equipped with diverse materials that reflect children’s home, culture, and language.
-
Daily Routine: A consistent framework for the day provides a balanced variety of experiences and learning opportunities. Children engage in both individual and social play, participate in small- and large-group activities, assist with cleanup, socialize during meals, develop self-care skills, and exercise their small and large muscles. The most important segment of the daily routine is the plan-do-review sequence, in which children make decisions about what they will do, carry out their ideas, and reflect upon their activities with adults and other children. These higher-level thinking skills are linked to the development of executive functions, which are needed to be successful in school and life.
-
Assessment: Ongoing child assessment is also an underlying component of the HighScope Curriculum. Objective anecdotal observations of children collected throughout children’s natural play allow teachers to assess child progress and plan meaningful learning experiences.
