Program Overview
Caregivers are the primary focus in an infant’s world, creating the foundation for an infant’s expectations about the world. Every aspect of our infant room and program is designed to enhance and develop the natural learning ability and early social expression of your child. Participating in positive early social exchanges helps to provide the basis for healthy self concepts and confidence and leads to true social interactions. Infants thrive on smiles and warm, sensitive care.
6 Weeks – 7 Months
The brain grows rapidly during infancy and undergoes remarkable changes. In addition to receiving gentle care and attention, infants need to exercise their fine motor skills. Early experiences are extremely critical. Infants assemble motor skills for perceiving and acting.
Motor skills are developed by setting goals each child is gently motivated to reach. Environmental support is important, and we strive to set attainable goals and work toward them throughout our programs. At six months or so, infants can coordinate looking and reaching abilities, which leads to more complex interactions with caregivers. Our care is designed to support and nurture all of these new skills and experiences.
8 – 14 Months (mobile)
Development at this stage is just as extraordinary and rapid as the first six months, just in different ways. Children explore on their own and become more mobile. Increasingly sophisticated emotions emerge, such as sadness and joy, as well as the capacity to begin to regulate these emotions. Many infants begin working on large mobile development such as pushing carts and beginning to army crawl. This stage also involves more finely tuned movements such as grasping a toy, using a spoon, buttoning a shirt, or anything that requires finger dexterity. A child’s curiosity to explore also emerges at this stage.
"Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself."
- John Dewey | Educational Reformer
Program Highlights
Schedule a VisitLearning
In our learning programs, infants are introduced to the alphabet, numbers, shapes, and colors; these four areas of learning are presented daily to increase your infant’s knowledge, create awareness, and stimulate cognitively to help each infant learn, grow, and change according to his/her own ability. We also introduce basic sign language to make it easier for infants to communicate. Preschool years are crucial to children’s language and literacy learning overall.
Books
Our infants are read to daily. We present stories with puppetry, big pictures, and other media that stimulate your infant’s interest. From the very beginning, you can instill a love for learning in your infant.
Exercise
Exercising stimulates the body and its core muscles. It strengthens bones, creates energy, and promotes mental awareness. Cognitively, it creates a desire to learn and an excitement and energy to communicate. We engage infants in tummy time to develop core muscles, in addition to practicing sitting, grasping, and a series of rolling and stretching exercises.
Mirrors
We work with each infant in front of our mirrors; they love to view themselves, laugh, and smile. Mats are used for infants from six weeks to three months or when they start to roll over, creep, etc. Floors are kept immaculately clean so your baby can creep, crawl, roll, and have fun in a safe, clean, and sanitary environment. Infants begin understanding depth perception and developing self awareness as they begin to see who they are.
Music
Children love music and our program is very music-oriented. We spend much of our class time singing with the children and playing musical instruments. Infants in particular love the sound of the musical instruments (bells, tambourines, piano, xylophone, drums, etc.).
Nutrition & Feedings
Nutritional needs are individual among infants, and are based on size, ethnicity, and level of activity. Some eat more than others. Adequate early nutrition is an important aspect of healthy development. Thus, we feed children based on their personal schedules and individual needs, supporting parental requests, whether breast milk or formula. Nutrition is key in an infant’s growth. We want to build strong bodies and minds and stimulate mental awareness. Our staff will make recommendations based on your child’s growth and development as part of our communication process. At seven months, we introduce whole, organic, pureed foods prepared fresh daily by our local organic catering company, Gourmet Gorilla™.
Cribs
Each infant has his/her own crib labeled with name, three sets of sheets, and a sleepsack from home. These are not shared with any other child.
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