Healthy child development
Rosewood Academy provides exceptional toddler preschool experiences that stress developmental skills.
By their first birthday, children have developed a clear understanding that they are an important person. They explore the world around them by getting into everything and spending a short amount of time on each activity. In order to keep your toddler busy and happy, our caregivers plan engaging activities and lessons drawn from developmentally appropriate curriculum. Your child will be learning to get along with others, care for themselves, think for themselves and express themselves in the toddler classroom.
One curriculum we use is “Baby Doll Circle Time.” Research shows that secure adult-child relationships are a prerequisite for healthy child development. Our goal is to enhance the quality of the relationship between caregivers and children by strengthening attachment, adaptation, and social play. We want to help your toddler develop both their mind, feelings, and motor skills.
We provide the following key experiences in our toddler classrooms:
- Books and pictures: We read to toddlers frequently and play simple picture games.
- Conversation: We encourage toddlers to use or show an understanding of words. Adults point to, name and talk about pictures or real items, and model appropriate conversation skills, including eye contact, proximity and allowing time for someone to answer.
Physical development for toddlers include:
- Large muscles: walk, run, climb, balance, throw, kick, jump.
- Small muscles: puzzles, stringing spools, pull-apart toys, using washable crayons & markers, filling and dumping toys into a container, zipping and self-feeding with supervision.
Creative Activities for toddlers
- Art: Creating with crayons, colored chalk, washable markers and paint, molding with play dough, designing with paper, collage materials and glue.
- Blocks: Cloth, plastic, wooden or cardboard blocks along with toy people, animals and vehicles used daily to create scenes.
- Dramatic play: Pocketbooks, bags, baskets, playhouse furniture, dolls, telephones, toy shopping carts and other play items are available daily for children to use their imagination about things they know and see around them.
- Music and movement: Musical Instruments, toys, songs, finger plays, recorded music (classical, multicultural, lullabies, rhythm and dance).
Learning from the world around them
- Nature: Daily outdoor time, natural things (flowers, birds, insects, plants animals) are displayed, pointed out and talked about – sand/water play is available regularly.
- Numbers: Introduction to number ideas and words through number rhymes songs, hearing quantity size words and hearing adults counting items.
- Five senses: This is the most natural way for toddlers to learn. Children will still be given opportunities to taste and feel things in their mouths, but their other senses will be used more.
- Shape, size and color: While exploring toys, pictures, and familiar items, children will discover these attributes.
We look forward to working with you and your child in our toddler preschool to lay a firm foundation for their future education.