About Us

OUR HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY

Since 1999, Creative Minds Child Development Center has been serving the Sugar Land and surrounding community. We are a family run business that started with a love for children, and the desire to ensure the future success of children by strengthening early childhood education.

Our mission is to provide a quality child care service to the community from Infant through Pre-Kindergarten children that promotes development in the areas of cognitive, social, and physical skills. In this way we are helping children to become independent, inquisitive, and self-confident learners. Our Motto is “No Limits to Learning” because we believe that every child has potential. We have been recognized both nationally and statewide for our continued efforts to maintain a high quality program and for helping change the future of early childhood education for the better.
Each child is a unique individual creation. We provide developmentally appropriate programs that focus on the process of learning and help children enjoy successful experiences. We encourage not just learning, but the love of learning.

We provide a physical environment that is safe, clean, healthy and oriented to children. Classrooms are arranged to offer challenging play and learning choices at a range of developmental levels. “Learning Centers” allow children opportunity to explore, to experience and most importantly … to succeed.
In the 20 years since we opened our doors, we have forged lasting relationships with the families whose children have graced our classrooms. We continually work to earn the trust placed in us, and we strive each day to be the best childcare provider in the community we serve
Our logo, the butterfly, is the symbol of freedom, joy, change and color, which also underpins our school’s philosophy about early childhood education.

OUR CURRICULUM

Creative Minds Child Development Center believes that high quality care and early education produces lifelong benefits for children and families. We utilize scientifically supported tools and curriculums in all our classrooms including:

Creative Curriculum
Teaching Strategies GOLD (TSG)
Ages and Stages (ASQ)
ITERS (Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale)
ECERS (Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale)

Creative Curriculum®

The philosophy behind Creative Curriculum is that young children learn best by doing. Learning isn’t just repeating what someone else says; it requires active thinking and experimenting to find out how things work and to learn firsthand about the world we live in.
Play provides the foundation for academic or “school” learning. It is the preparation children need before they learn highly abstract symbols such as letters (which are symbols for sounds) and numbers (which are symbols for number concepts). Play enables us to achieve the key goals of our early childhood curriculum. Play is the work of young children.

The Goals of Creative Curriculum®

The most important goal of our early childhood curriculum is to help children become enthusiastic learners. This means encouraging children to be active and creative explorers who are not afraid to try out their ideas and to think their own thoughts. Our goal is to help children become independent, self-confident, inquisitive learners. We’re teaching them how to learn, not just in preschool, but all through their lives. We’re allowing them to learn at their own pace and in the ways that are best for them. We’re giving them good habits and attitudes, particularly a positive sense of themselves, which will make a difference throughout their lives.

Our curriculum identifies goals in all areas of development:

Social: To help children feel comfortable in school, trust their new environment, make friends, and feel they are a part of the group.

Emotional: To help children experience pride and self-confidence, develop independence and self-control, and have a positive attitude toward life.

Cognitive: To help children become confident learners by letting them try out their own ideas and experience success, and by helping them acquire learning skills such as the ability to solve problems, ask questions, and use words to describe their ideas, observations, and feelings.

Physical: To help children increase their large and small muscle skills and feel confident about what their bodies can do.

The activities we plan for children, the way we organize the environment, select toys and materials, plan the daily schedule, and talk with children, are all designed to accomplish the goals of our curriculum and give your child a successful start in school.

Teaching Strategies Gold (TSG) and Ages and Stages Questionnaires (ASQ)

Each child at Creative Minds Child Development Center is regularly assessed using either TSG or ASQ to assess each child’s learning and development and better understand each child’s strengths, abilities and interests.
TSG is an authentic and on-going assessment based on the latest research. TSG is proven valid and reliable, and is fully aligned with the Common Core State Standards.

ASQ is a screening process used for children from one month to 5 ½ years of age. ASQ uses parents/guardians knowledge about their children to find strengths and/or possible concerns that might help or hinder their learning at our educational preschools. This lets us tailor our teaching practices to each child’s needs.

Family and Teacher conferences are conducted quarterly to share and discuss assessment results. Teachers meet with the parents/caregivers for each child and use assessment results as a conversational springboard to discuss:

Goals parents have for their children
Ask parents how they feel about their child’s care and what improvements they would like to see
The child’s progress in meeting their developmental milestones i.e. fine and gross motor skills
Social/emotional strengths and growth areas
Upcoming transitions each family can look forward to and work on

OUR STAFF

We believe the strength of our program is the dedication and qualifications of our teaching staff. We support our teachers with training, resources and freedom to create a unique learning experience for children. We provide many opportunities for teachers to share ideas and grow professionally. Our teachers create a caring and nurturing atmosphere and foster each child’s creativity and positive self-image.

We foster positive methods of discipline, and establish consistent, age appropriate limits to help children function in their world. Our programs are designed to develop a sense of independence and responsibility in children. We desire to strengthen each child’s own cultural identity, while instilling a respect for others who may be different.

Parents are the most significant adults in a child’s life. We strive to create mutual respect between parents and teachers; a partnership for the benefit of the child. We encourage daily communication between parents and Creative Minds Child Development Center staff. Our doors are open to parents at all times.

HONORS

Accredited By NAEYC

Our school has earned accreditation from the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)—the world’s largest organization working on behalf of young children.

NAEYC Accreditation is a rigorous and transformative quality-improvement system that uses a set of 10 research-based standards to collaborate with early education programs to recognize and drive quality-improvement in high-quality early learning environments. “We’re proud to have earned the mark of quality from NAEYC, and to be recognized for our commitment to reaching the highest professional standards,” said Creative Minds Owner/Director, Aurora Haller.

To earn NAEYC Accreditation, our school went through an extensive self-study and quality-improvement process, followed by an on-site visit by NAEYC Assessors to verify and ensure that the program met each of the ten program standards, and hundreds of corresponding individual criteria. NAEYC-accredited programs are always prepared for unannounced quality-assurance visits during their accreditation term, which lasts for five years.

In the 30 years since NAEYC Accreditation was established, it has become a widely recognized sign of high-quality early childhood education. More than 7,000 programs are currently accredited by NAEYC—less than 10 percent of all child care centers, preschools, and kindergartens nationally achieve this recognition.

“NAEYC-Accredited programs bring our definitions of excellence for early childhood education to life each day,” said Kristen Johnson, senior director of Early Learning Program Accreditation at NAEYC. “Earning NAEYC Accreditation makes Creative Minds Child Development Center an exemplar of good practice for families and the entire community.”

For more information about NAEYC Accreditation, visit the NAEYC website.

Texas Rising Star (TRS) 4 Star Rated

Across Texas, parents and families enroll their children into child care programs, including center-based and home-based programs. Numerous research studies have shown that at-risk children who attend higher quality child care programs are more prepared for school entry than children who do not attend quality child care programs. Those providers that voluntarily achieve TRS provider certification, offering quality care that exceeds the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) minimum Child Care Licensing (CCL) standards for director and staff qualifications, caregiver-child interactions, age-appropriate curricula and activities, nutrition and indoor/outdoor activities, and parent involvement and education, are in a better position to contribute to the early development of children. As providers progress through the levels of TRS provider certification, they contribute progressively more to the development of the children they serve daily.
We are proud to have maintained a 4 star rating- the highest rating given by TRS- for over 7 years.