Frog Class

Caterpillar Class

Fish Class

Butterfly Class

SPOTLIGHT ON THE FROG CLASS

The Frog Class is the program that serves our youngest children.

For a young two year old child the world can seem pretty big and even a little scary.  That is why the teachers assigned to the Frog Class focus on making this program and the environment a very loving and caring one.  Frog Class teachers work to create a low stress environment capable of promoting positive growth and development. The overall goal of the program is "Readiness".  In the areas of cognitive and language development, the children are encouraged to develop self awareness such as being able to recognize themselves in photographs and point to their own name.  Children in the Frog Class work on verbalizing their needs, following directions and beginning to do for themselves.  Matching colors and shapes, participation in art and music, learning concepts and sequences are all part of the activities of the program for these two year olds.

At this early stage, many children tend to be primarily egocentric. That is they are very much focused on themselves and their "things". Therefore, hanging on to and protecting toys can become very important. Empathy and concern for others are social skills that need to be learned and reinforced at this young age.  In the Frog Class our program works on developing positive relationships with others and emphasis is placed on reminding the children of the needs of the other children.  The teachers use phrases such as, "May Billy have a turn with the car when you are done?" or "Jayne looks sad, I think that hurt her feelings."  Stressing the needs of others, promoting parallel play and beginning to have children learn to play together are very important aspects of our readiness program. Consistency, caring and patience are the watchwords that drive this part of the curriculum.

Motor skills are also very important at this stage of a child's development.  Considerable time is spent outside helping the children to develop skills such as throwing and catching, safely jumping forward and backward, climbing, pedaling etc. Inside activities stress developing fine motor skills such as pouring liquids, using scissors, stringing beads and yes, even pounding objects with precision.

Though techniques for teaching children to learn and helping them to develop concepts and social skills are important in the Frog Class, the real secrets to the success of the program are the warm, welcoming atmosphere and the always "open lap" all of the teachers provide.

When a child leaves the Frog Room to move along in their preschool experience our goal is for them to have gained the maturity, the basic skills and the emotional readiness to succeed. Most of all we want them to feel loved and comfortable, because - if children feel loved and comfortable, the learning and the personal development comes much easier.