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Bright Beginnings offers a full range of programs for your child including age-specific curriculums for Infants, Toddlers, Two and Three Year Olds, and Pre-Kindergarten children. All classes are grouped by age and are designed to be developmentally stimulating for all children. We offer toddler through Pre-K care at all locations, and infant care at our Crozet facility. School Age care is offered after school and on days when school is not in session.
Our child centered curriculum combines teacher guided activities with ample time for free choice, socialization and play. We meet each child at his or her developmental level and strive to provide a stimulating, creative and discovery-oriented environment where learning is achieved through play. We emphasize the whole child and value each child's unique traits. On a daily basis your child will experience language arts, literature, early math concepts, creative art projects, dramatic play, as well as gross and fine motor activities.
LITERATURE
Immersing children in quality literature by talented authors is the most important part of our language arts program. Each day we read, explore and role-play a variety of picture books, poetry, informational books, concept books, fiction and non-fiction. We explore the elements of literature with the children: theme, plot, characters, setting, style, and format, discuss authors' similarities and differences, and talk about the parts of a book (pages, binding, cover, end pages, title page, etc.) Many times we utilize Big Books which are especially wonderful for this age-level. We urge you to read to your child on a daily basis and suggest that you borrow from the local library some of the same books we use at school. Children love to hear stories over and over again!
LANGUAGE ARTS
The Language Experience Approach to reading readiness is utilized at all levels. The basic philosophy behind this approach is that spoken language can be transformed into written language. It is more meaningful for children to learn to read or recognize letters that are a part of their daily spoken vocabulary rather than from "teacher" or "company written" material. Language development concepts explored may include:
- Colors
- Simple word recognition
- Recognizing first names
- Word banks
- Picture sorts
- Child and group written stories
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MATHEMATICS
At Bright Beginnings, we combine many "Math Their Way" philosophies and ideas with our own philosophy of spontaneous play to create a multi-disciplinary approach to math readiness. Our philosophy of play easily carries over into our math program. We provide a variety of manipulative objects for the children in all of our groups so they may prepare to learn abstract math concepts. It is critical that children first experience concepts at the concrete level before progressing to more abstract thinking and eventually to paper and pencil tasks. You will see our shelves and tables filled with unifix cubes, pattern blocks, junk boxes, sugar cubes, geo-boards and bins with real objects found in everyday living such as keys, pipe cleaners and cotton balls.
We regularly initiate a graphing experience for the children using a related topic. For example during a nutrition unit, we may encourage all children to bring in a favorite fruit. Then we would make a real-life graph using our fruit. The children can physically place their fruit on the graph and count forward and backward to decide which category has more or less. We also do people graphing and people sorting many times during circle or math time. Children can also get physically involved in math experiences when we sort them by sweater color, hair color, tie vs. buckle shoes, etc. At this level of cognitive development, real objects are the most meaningful, and so we present our math activities in a concrete and hands-on manner.
Our math curriculum includes a wide variety of activities suited to a full range of pre-school developmental stages and abilities. Activities include:
- Sorting
- Graphing
- Counting
- Patterning
- Classifying
- Number recognition
- Shape recognition
As in all development-style programs, our math program can stimulate, motivate, and teach each child at their own level. In a word, our math experiences are FUN!
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CIRCLE TIME
Discussion about our daily lives and classroom events provide children a chance to develop speaking and listening skills, practice taking turns, and enhance self-esteem. Typical circle time activities include:
- Sharing
- Counting forward and backward
- Story-telling
- Assigning classroom helpers
- Discussing the months of the year and days of the week
- Discussing the weather
- Doing fingerplays
- Playing group games
- Singing songs
- Patterning
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CREATIVE ART EXPERIENCE
We believe that a quality early childhood program nurtures and develops creativity. We provide a variety of art experiences on a daily basis with an emphasis on process rather than product. Many times the process is messy, so please send your child dressed in play clothes. We love to paint and experiment with various art media such as:
- Paint (both Tempra and Watercolor)
- Glue and paste
- Crayons, markers, and colored pencils
- Pastels and colored chalk
- Scissors
- Stamps
- Glitter
Sometimes we enjoy creating class murals and having group art experiences.
Children are always excited to see their artwork displayed in their classrooms, in the halls, and at home. Artwork is also great to mail to grandparents.
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DRAMA AND MOVEMENT
Through creative expression, children become more aware of themselves and their environment. Our drama and movement exercises include:
- Skits
- Face painting
- Puppets
- Body awareness
- Games
- Dress up
- Dancing
- Role playing
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PHYSICAL ACTIVITES
Outside time develops fine and gross motor abilities. Our children experience a variety of outdoor activities such as:
- Throwing, catching, running
- Swinging
- Balancing on our balencing beams or tires
- Playing cooperative games
- Doing gymnastics
- Playing in the sandbox
- Climbing on the jungle gym
- Racing through obstacle courses
- Climbing tires
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FREE PLAY
Our free play activities are age-appropriate and promote discovery. Some free play activities include:
- Dressing up
- Housekeeping
- Washing and water play
- Exploring corn meal, beans, noodles, sand, oatmeal, or rice
- Exploring discovery boxes
- Using blocks and puzzles
- Playing kitchen
- Gardening
- Using manipulatives
- Exploring duplo tables
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SCIENCE
We encourage children to observe, predict, and discover through a variety of science activities such as:
- Seasonal nature activities
- Related field trips
- Hands-on experiments
- Classroom experiments
- Collecting and graphing data
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SOCIAL STUDIES
We are learning to respect ourselves, others, and our community through activities such as:
- Guest speakers
- Community celebrations
- Related field trips
- Seasonal festivals
- Cooperative activities
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MUSIC
Children love the emphasis we place on listening to and participating in music. We encourage their natural love of music by:
- Singing songs
- Doing fingerplays
- Playing musical instruments
- Playing musical games
- Doing interpretive movement and dance
- Creating art while listening to a variety of music
- Having weekly sing-ins with other classes
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CENTERS AND QUIET GAMES
We use "hands-on" centers and games to teach many math and language concepts, as well as universal concepts such as taking turns, listening and following directions. Classrooms typically include the following centers:
- Block area
- Book area
- Math materials and games
- Water table
- Free art station
- Discovery boxes
- Teacher-made manipulatives
- Traditional board games
- Listening station
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"CHILDREN'S HUMANITIES MINI-COURSES"
These courses have been established to enrich your child's education here at our school. We are offering Yoga, Spanish, Sign Language, Drama, Literature, and Music to students in the Three and Four year old class. These classes will be taught on a rotating basis (three mini courses twice a week). By offering these mini-courses we hope to enrich your child's life, enhance his or her education, and to create lasting experiences that will follow your child through their educational journey.
YOGA
It is our goal to instill fun, enjoyment, and the benefit to health that exercise can provide. Children's yoga is free-spirited and playful, which draws upon the child's sense of curiosity. They will be learning poses such as the Cow, Butterfly, and Cat.
SPANISH
Our goal is to teach simple phrases and words to the classes that include greeting, animals, numbers, letters.
SIGN LANGUAGE
Will be taught and used in the classroom to foster the process of communication. We hope that this course will allow us all to learn a language that is used to communicate and to learn about differences.
MUSIC AND DANCE
During this time we will be holding sing-a-longs, playing with a variety of musical instruments and learning to express ourselves through dance.
LITERATURE
Not only will we be reading books with the children, but incorporating art and other activities to also reinforce each weeks story.
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434-823-7129
1645 Park Ridge Drive