El Jardín Infantil offers a choice of enrollment options: four days, Monday-Thursday, or two days, Monday/Wednesday or Tuesday/Thursday.
Our play-based curriculum meets children where they are. Learning is fun and natural for children, teachers are there to support and expand the children’s own explorations and discoveries. Play is part of everything we do!
At our morning gathering we sing songs, learn things together from each other’s names to letter sounds. When we take attendance we count kids, teachers and even the class crayfish! As the year progresses we even move on to patterning. We also read together every day! We read books in both English and Spanish.
Morning and afternoon snack give us the chance to sit down together and learn Spanish words for the foods we love! Everyday activities, like figuring out how many spoons we need give us a chance to practice counting.
During our long free play time children have the opportunity to choose their own activities. Art exploration, block building, puzzles and games, dramatic play and more are always available. Teachers scaffold the children’s play finding opportunities for learning and help with the important socio-emotional business of learning to work together with peers. Throughout the year we change our dramatic play to keep it exciting! Laundromat, auto mechanic, space ship, veterinarian’s office and insect lab are just a few of the things we have explored in past years.
We think it is important for children to spend time outside every day! El Jardín Infantil has access to a large on-site green space in addition to our fenced in play yard. We are out in all kinds of weather, it helps us learn about our world! Rainy day walks are magic. Besides free play we learn great gross motor skills like catching and throwing balls, batting, and kicking a soccer ball. We take walking field trips to neighborhood parks and Olbrich Gardens! When the weather is nice we end our day outside too.
We have a daily small group time where we do a variety of teacher guided learning activities. Every day is something different! we use this time for math, literacy, science, and special art projects!
We love to have special guests come in to explore special interests with the children.
