Toddler Program

Toddler program

The youngest children at our school delight in exploring the world around them. Even routine activities such as feeding and diapering provide opportunities for our teachers to sing, talk, and interact with your child. Toddlers learn best in the context of relationships within small groups. In our program, the approach focuses on the recognition that a curriculum must be based on both care and education, those being one and the same for toddlers. Promoting children’s secure attachment relationships with caregivers and families through primary caregiving with a consistent adult is given the highest priority. Our curriculum centers on connections and relationships where adults respect and respond to children’s cues and interests. The caregiver/teacher will get to know the children and families well so that the experiences enhance and blend with home life.

The Reggio Emilia approach and the RIE (Resources for Infant Educarers) approach share many principles and are often combined in early childhood education. Both approaches treat children as active learners and encourage a trusting relationship between caregiver and child. The caregiver/teacher will get to know the children and families well so that the experiences enhance and blend with home life.

Student Ages

18 to 33 months

Start Date

Revolving enrollment

Number Of Learners

4 Children learners

Class Time

8:00 am - 5:15 pm

Class Day

Monday - Friday

Register For Your Child

Children’s relationships and interactions within a system.

Education has to focus on each child, not considered in isolation, but seen in relation with the family, with other children, with the teachers, with the environment of the school, with the community, and with the wider society. Each school is viewed as a system in which all these relationships, which are all interconnected and reciprocal, are activated and supported.

Discoveries

Toddlers are curious and examine all that is seen as the infant works to understand the world. Caregivers create an individualized curriculum in a safe and interesting environment to enhance the toddler’s natural curiosity, allowing the toddler to discover, investigate and learn about the world. Engaging your child in language play, responding to non-verbal cues, and encouraging socialization with other infants and adults helps your toddler learn to communicate.

Toddler Experiences

Promoting growth in all areas of your toddler’s development is incorporated into the day. Creative experiences with art materials, playing in the classroom area to learn about daily life, participating in music and dance, playing with toys that can be built with, exercising and developing large muscles, and listening to stories are among the many experiences your child will enjoy. Since language is developing rapidly at this age, learning to communicate and hearing language is an integral part of their day.

Supportive Environment

Toddlers are also learning self-regulation, that is, how to manage their strong impulses and emotions in ways that will help them successfully negotiate their world. Adults provide a positive supportive environment as toddlers struggle to learn these skills.Toddlers are developing their independence and many opportunities are provided for them to do this. The caregivers/teachers work with the families to introduce, encourage and practice new skills. Learning to dress and feed themselves and use the toilet are important milestones for toddlers.

Outdoor Experiences

Building Blocks Preschool realizes the importance of outdoor experiences and has an area outdoors for toddlers to enjoy and explore nature. We go outdoors daily to run, play, and search our surroundings. We may observe the flowers, take a walk in the garden, play in the mudpie kitchen, enjoy the swing, and roll down the hill.

Loris Malaguzzi, founder of the programs in Reggio Emilia, has taught us that children express their thoughts and feelings through 100 Languages, the spoken word certainly, but also through gesture, music, constructing, dramatic play, dance, paint, clay, and drawing to name a few. Exploring these languages prepares children for their future journeys during the preschool years.

Hands-on and authentic experiences guide the curriculum for children to discover. Children are encouraged to use their senses as they explore the world around them. Through early literacy experiences, children learn to appreciate language, gain new vocabulary, and learn to use new words and concepts. Simple participatory songs and finger plays are important introductions to speech patterns, motor skill development, and math concepts. Project work often steers their curriculum. Our teaching staff observes the children’s interests through their play. Activities are developed and items are added to the environment to encourage further exploration, questioning, and discovery. It is proven that children learn more when the subject stimulates them; therefore colors, numbers, and emergent literacy are all strengthened through the Project Approach.

Other Programs

Pre Kindergarten Program

We offer Full-Time and Part-Time PreK and Kindergarten programs. Our Full-Time program runs year-round, while Morning PreK follows the Huron Valley Schools calendar.

Summer Camp Programs

Join our nature day summer camps at Building Blocks for an educational summer! Sign up for STEM camps, creative arts, and adventures to local spots like Highland Rec. and Teeple Lake.