Starting At 12 Months

Your toddler is asserting her independence in new ways every day. It's exciting, rewarding and challenging to watch. We recognize that children at this age may be at very different stages of development. Some may have just started walking, while others are already exploring the many other facets of their emerging development.

The Toddler Program at Early Birds is specially designed to accommodate your child, no matter where he or she is in their development.

Learning Through Fun & Activity

What Your Toddler's Day is Like

The Toddler Program begins to incorporate some structure into the day, as we focus on helping your toddler transition into the next phase of education and care.

Activities:

Your toddler will begin the day with a group activity, such as singing a group song or exploring a book with the class. After the teacher tends to the routine needs of your toddler, the class engages in child-directed activities within different interest centers.

The teacher will also facilitate a teacher-directed activity such as music or art. There will likely be two to three toddler teachers in your child's classroom, which allows us to split up the class and rotate them through the teacher-directed activity so that your child gets more individualized attention.

Your toddler will engage in manipulative activities to develop fine and gross motor skills.
After the snack break the class gets together for story time.

Every toddler is an individual and will follow a unique path to achieving developmental milestones - it is important to remember this as you read through this section. Some will develop in certain skill areas faster or slower than others.

The Toddler Developmental Milestones are simply a resource for teachers and parents. Toddler teachers create daily lesson plans to ensure that they expose your child to the full breadth of activities necessary to reach various milestones.

The toddler lesson plans are created using the suggested activities in our curriculum and are tailored to your toddler's progress. So, for example, if he is learning to point to one major body part, the teacher might decide to plan some of the language and cognitive activities that will teach him about the different words to describe his body and how to communicate that he understands those words.

How do we know that your child is ready for certain challenges? Our toddler teachers are trained to recognize key signs in your toddler's behavior. For example, her teacher might notice her exhibiting the building blocks toward learning to walk, or see that she is responding to an increased set of vocabulary. Our Toddler Program allows us to cue in on these type of keys to continually

• improve gross and fine motor skills
• develop receptive and expressive language
• help her understand relationships with herself, her peers, and her loved ones
• nourish her curiosity and enjoyment of activities and objects

The various play and learning materials are arranged into clear and distinct 'interest areas:'

• Active and Gross Motor Play - including rocking toys, large climbing structures
• Fine Motor Play and Manipulatives - including action and reaction toys, puzzles, and stacking objects
• Imagination and Quiet Play - including doll items, kitchen sets, play food, and other pretend play items
• Language Development and Music and Movement - including cassette players, children's books, musical instruments and puppets
• Creative Arts & Exploration - including art materials, a sand and water table, and sensory materials such as tactile play materials