All About our infant and one year old room:
Our room consists of 9 children from the ages of 6 weeks to 24 months and three teachers. Our room is very busy and active but our schedule is based on your child’s needs. We will not put your infant on a schedule, instead we will follow the schedule you give us and adjust it as your child grows. Our one-year-old toddlers do follow a schedule that meets their needs. Our environment is set up to ensure your child has the space, equipment and personal interaction to develop into wonderful and curious toddlers. We have a protective area for our babies who aren’t quite mobile yet. This allows them to have an area where they can play safely away separate from our more mobile friends.
Miss Kathy enjoys caring for the babies while Miss Elizabeth and Miss Alex split their day with our one year old toddlers. Miss Kathy has been with us since November of 2003 and Miss Elizabeth became a Clubhouse teacher in January of 2012. Both teachers are also parents as well as grandparents and joined us with many years of previous experience in child care. Miss Alex is our “youngest”. She joined us the summer of 2019. She came with plenty of experience for us to include her in our room. All Clubhouse teachers continue learning by taking college courses and/or attending workshops in Early Child Education.
Curiosity Possibilities: Infants are curious about the world in which they live. They want to find out what is in it and how everything works. An assortment of rattles is a delightful means of interacting with young babies. Repetition of movement and activity is vitally important for brain development. Repetition helps babies “wire” their brains and strengthens neural pathways that are just developing. We change our equipment around often to introduce new experiences to our older toddlers. The role of our teachers is to interact with your child and provide plenty of invitations to play and reach developmental milestones.
Literacy: We read books with the children everyday. Children also have their own books to use. We teach them to take care of the books. To be nice to the books. Of course, the only way to learn this is by trial and error. We learn by doing. As the books get tattered and torn, we replace them. And we keep on learning. Reading is very important for developing language skills. We also sing through out the day which also helps build language skills.
Gross Motor Activities: Weather permitting we try to get outside twice a day. During the winter or on rainy days that may not be possible. When that happens we will get the children moving by other means. We love to do yoga and to dance! We often use scarves to dance with. We bring out the instruments and start a marching band. We have tunnels to climb through as well as ride-on toys and a soft climbing structure.
And Much More: Our toddlers enjoy many activities that include finger and brush painting, coloring and gluing. Plastic jars with tops to undo, simple sorting, surprise toys such as a jack-in-the-box and busy boxes with a variety of things to turn and push are all interesting. Other favorites include water play, shaving cream play, goop and rice play. Our infants also enjoy tummy time and baby yoga. They join in the toddler circle time and sing along.
We provide breakfast, lunch and an afternoon snack. We also provide cereal, baby food and formula. This is included in your tuition.
Our goal is to work closely together with you to provide the best care for your child.
Sincerely,
Our Infants and Ones
Miss Kathy, Miss Elizabeth Miss Alex
and the entire Clubhouse Staff