Grandma's Arms Child Care & Development Center

Social-emotional growth of the children is the key element of our curriculum because we know that, without strong social-emotional skills, children will not be successful in the world around them. We foster this development by building relationships amongst children and adults through warm, respectful communication and modeling. We help each child develop a strong sense of individual self-worth and build a community which appreciates the uniqueness of each adult and child.

The development of strong fine and gross motor skills is vital to many experiences, children will have in their future, both in and out of school (such as sitting at a desk, playing on the playground, participating in sports, riding a bicycle, exercising, and self-regulation). We support the development of fine motor skills by providing a variety of hands-on experiences including writing, drawing, cutting, clay-work, painting, and the creation of 3-dimensional art. We also provide a wide variety of sensory-rich experiences, knowing that the more surfaces children touch, the more their sensitivity to texture solidifies and the more their hand-eye coordination increases. Faculty incorporate a variety of opportunities to develop their gross motor skills throughout the day by running, jumping, climbing, skipping, dancing, climbing stairs, and hanging from the monkey bars.

Young children develop language skills at a remarkable rate, and we provide opportunities to help them do so. We facilitate the growth of spoken language through speaking with the children and through actively encouraging them to speak with each other. We ask for their opinions, model patterns of conversation, ask them questions, and utilize descriptive language to help them begin to label items and feelings. We encourage the development of pre-literacy skills through reading to children regularly, and through making books and the discussion of books an important part of their daily experience.

In today’s world, where Google can answer any question and provide you with any fact, our primary focus is teaching children how to think, not what to think. We encourage children to not only ask questions, but to help find the answers themselves. We conduct research with the children by collecting data and determining next steps in a project. We allow our investigations to extend over periods of weeks, and sometimes months, so that the children have time to physically process the information and to create connections in their minds, literally building their own knowledge. Our research investigations incorporate all the developmental areas as children analyze, work together in a social group, establish pride in their own work, document their observations, create, and learn new vocabulary related to their studies.