Explorer

Person who explores or investigates unknown territory.

Our Explorers Class is our equivalent of Pre-K, age 3.5 years – 5years. The class name is perfect for this age range, as it is a time of more calculated exploration, wanting to discover new things, and the answer to “why?”.  This the age where children are discovering new knowledge and skills, very quickly! This is year is preparing them for school academically, socially,  and emotionally.

Goals

We have set forth a number of goals that help us in designing the curriculum. These goals along with our quarterly reports, are used to ensure children are prepared for kindergarten. Our curriculum is designed to meet head start standards for entry to kindergarten. We use weekly observations, quarterly reports and individualized learning plans to ensure each child is more than prepared for kindergarten.

The Whole Child

The goal of nurturing the whole child is a little different in each age group. For the explorers group this means encouraging their curiosity, questioning, excitement, and eagerness. It takes the right mix of teacher, curriculum, and environment to create challenging learning experiences for this group. We adapt our curriculum to help support Explorers to become confident, self sufficient, knowledgeable, and social. One of the main ways we do this is through exposure to a variety of learning opportunities. We keep learning and play fun by offering new experiences to be creative with. You will notice there is less Freeplay time built into the Explorers schedule. This is done purposefully to adapt to the Explorers to a learning schedule. That does not mean it’s all work and no play! To the contrary, our goal is to make the learning more fun than play!

The Schedule

As you can see we have a very full day that keeps us busy from beginning to end. There are times where it is impossible to get through every activity that is planned. Our goal is to be adaptable to what the class is excited about on any given day, while still achieving our learning objectives. We facilitate this, by having blocks of time set aside for activities. The activity blocks are padded with extra time for distractions and to ensure smooth transitions. Each of our daycare rooms are multi-functional, so the activity can be changed as needed. Below is an example of a daily schedule of the Explorers: