Our Learning Standards

Our furnishings and learning equipment are all made from natural products and are designed and set up to create a beautiful environment where children can learn, play and grow. 

Our team is constantly researching and learning about the newest trends in early childhood education / primary teaching and using this information in classroom design which is continuously adapted to meet the current standards in education. 

All furnishings and equipment are open-ended and can be moved and used throughout the play environment. We train our Teachers on how to set up new and interesting learning areas each day with different play provocations set up throughout the classroom so that children are inspired to learn and play throughout the entire space. 

Loose parts are a huge component of our classrooms and are incorporated in all learning areas. The natural, open-ended beauty of the classroom environment inspires curiosity in our children and Teachers to learn, explore, experiment and play.

To create a sense for being part of a classroom family, children are asked to take ownership in the school and classroom. They help setting the table for lunch, cleaning up, watering plants, folding cloths and towels and participate in all aspects of the daily, classroom routine. 

This helps children become self-sufficient, and to feel like they are an important part of the classroom family. We create a family environment during our meal times which are served family style. Teachers sit down to eat with the children and everyone helps to serve each other and clean up. 

Children are encouraged to help themselves and others as much as possible and engage in social conversations with their friends. Parents are always welcome to come in and participate in our classroom this provides a great glimpse into their child’s day. 

Our educators are trained in play based learning. They take careful observations of each child at play to take note of each child’s individual needs and interests. 

This helps the teacher provide children with the equipment and supplies needed to support their exploration while asking questions to guide children in play expansion and comprehension. 

Teachers review their observations to help them set up their classroom with activities and materials that will support the learning needs of each individual child but will also reflect the particular interests of the children in their classroom. 

By setting up a classroom filled with open ended materials and activities that are based on children’s interests, teachers foster and encourage exploration and experimentation.

We provide a number of daily routines that promote literacy and language development in a fun, exciting and hands on way. As children arrive each morning they are guided through daily passwords, attendance cards, and sign in centres. 

These activities are fun and are a quick way to ensure that children get daily practice in sight word, letter and name recognition and daily practice in printing their name. 

Literacy centres are a key component of our curriculum with fun, hands on activities as well as weekly writing centres, storytelling baskets and writing experiences and materials that are integrated into all areas of the learning environment. 

Construction workers will be drawing up plans and blueprints in the construction area, while scientists are recording observations at the science table, and waiters and waitresses will be creating menus and taking down orders in our dramatic play centre restaurant. 

By incorporating writing experiences and opportunities into all aspects of play, children are fully emerged in literacy learning throughout their day.

Our teachers create an all-inclusive classroom where all cultures, religions and ethnicities are welcomed and celebrated. 

Parents, grandparents and family members are always welcome in our classrooms and are encouraged to come in and share crafts, discussions, projects and stories from their own families.

Our dolls, books and equipment are chosen to represent all ethnicities that are included in our classrooms. Our activities focus on learning about the world and helping others. We create many projects that are focused on charity, friendship and inclusion.

Our sensory area is a great place to get messy and experiment with all kinds of materials. The items that go into our sensory bin are based on the observations teachers make of what is of interest to the children. 

Children are thrilled to be able to explore goop, slime, sand, water, shaving cream, bubbles and other wonderful messy materials. This area is also used to create sensory worlds that are of interest to the children including ponds, treasure hunts, under the sea landscapes, dinosaur digs, and farm lands. 

When possible we take many projects outside where we are free to make a great, big, glorious mess!

So much learning occurs as children engage in constructing and building a variety of structures. We provide children with tons of open ended building equipment that they can use during their play. 

Equipment includes blocks, Legos, Mega Blocks, Gears, Tinker Toys, Lincoln Logs, and many connecting sets. All can be combined to create some magnificent building projects. 

Teachers also provide other materials as requested by the children like boxes, boards, stones, sticks and tubes. We provide everything to promote some enjoyable building play.

We incorporate numeracy activities into all areas of play. Activities are carefully planned so that they are fun, play based and hands on. 

This ensures that children are interested in exploring our learning centres and activities and are fully engaged in the learning experience. Activities cover all areas of math learning including number recognition, graphing, patterning, printing numbers, counting, learning shapes, matching, ordering, measurement and one to one correspondence. 

In addition to carefully planned activities children also have access to a wide variety of open ended math tools and equipment that they can explore learning opportunities on their own in their daily play and natural curiosity.

We encourage daily exploration, experimentation, wondering about how things work and asking questions. We create science areas with changing equipment that are chosen to inspire the interests of the children and encourage them to explore and learn. 

Activities are based on children’s interests and questions that they have asked. In addition, fun, hands-on experiments are presented each week. These weekly Science experiments are a favourite among the children and they are always excited to see what activity is coming next. 

Making volcanoes, learning about germs with a germ explosion, mixing up some sticky slime, or creating a hover craft are among many of our fun activities. 

Our technology areas also have a variety of changing equipment as children learn how to use lap top computers, audio systems, gaming devices, and robotic devices. They will have the opportunity to take things apart and really get to the heart of how things work.

We place a huge focus on the arts. Children engage in many visual arts projects and are constantly exposed to a variety of different mediums that they may explore. 

Children are able to experiment with painting, colouring, collage, sculpting, stamping and drawing. They also have fun participating in some unusual art projects like finger painting with shaving cream and painting with baby bottles, yarn, ice, salad spinners, fly swatters, party blowers and other fun equipment. 

Our process is to focus on activities the children feel encouraged to explore with materials the enjoy creating their creative works with.

We provide classroom sets of drums, maracas, tambourines, rhythm scarves, parachutes, ribbon wands, balls and a wide variety of music and movement equipment. 

Our equipment is used during our circle time activities to get children up and moving to the rhythm. The hands on equipment make circle time a super fun time as children learn to move to the beat and play along with instruments to the rhythm of the music. 

Our music and movement activities are so popular that we are always asked to visit other centres and locations with our equipment to perform music and movement workshops with thousands of children every year.

Our adorable dramatic play centres are a favourite among the children. We ask the children what they would like to turn these areas into and, with their help, we transform these areas into beauty parlors, restaurants, ice cream shops, grocery stores, bee hives, castles, pirate ships, post offices and a variety of other dramatic play areas. 

We provide wonderful props that help the children to enter these centres and work with other children in all sorts of make believe play. 

Children also have access to beautiful puppet theaters and a variety of multicultural puppets and animal puppets that they may use in their performances. 

Dramatic play is also a huge component of our literacy program as children work together to act out stories we are working on and short plays during circle time.

With our Physical and Fitness program children enjoy gross motor games and activities using, balls, hula hoops, parachutes, ribbon wands and dancing scarves. 

Our open ended furnishings and equipment are designed to be used in engaging children in building, lifting and gross motor manipulation. 

Working their way through obstacle courses, stretching with yoga, dancing, climbing, building, gymnastics, and getting active in high energy games in the play yard are all part of the fun.

Following routines and moving through transition times can be very difficult and upsetting for young children. To make things more encouraging we have developed a way to move children through routines and transitions using musical cues. 

Our teachers sing our signature songs to signal time to clean up, line up, make a circle, come to circle time, and for lunch. We have discovered that guiding children through music is a fun way to get children to respond to transitions in a soothing and comforting way. 

When people visit our classes they are blown away by how well the children respond and follow these musical cues and how well organized and calm our classrooms are.