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