PHILOSOPHY

It is a mission of the Old City Child Care & Learning Center to provide a fully integrated early child care program to foster the child’s social and emotional growth as well as their physical and mental development. Additionally, we have implemented the High Reach curriculum in our programs for two year olds and pre-schoolers. The High Reach program includes age appropriate lesson plans, classroom materials and a parent newsletter filled with activities you can do with your child at home.

Old City Child Care & Learning Center offers a no-pressure environment in which children have an opportunity to be the agents of their own learning. This philosophy of respect for children and their ability to make choices builds self-esteem and creates a foundation of learning that is purely positive; therefore, the child’s relationship to school will be positive as the child moves on to grade school. Children will always choose to learn when they are ready for the challenge. Forcing a child into an activity that may be beyond their developmental abilities only teaches a child that the activity is difficult and should generally be avoided. Consequently, we employ game playing teaching techniques, freedom, validation and abundant support and affection to generate enthusiasm for learning. Old City Child Care & Learning Center graduates are invariably ready for kindergarten.

Our mixed-age open classroom stimulates complex socialization in a completely stable environment. The children do not find themselves among strangers as they are trying to develop their sense of the world. They are never moved from classroom to classroom as the years go by. This stability encourages exploration in children, because the safety net has been established through the constancy of care. For certain activities, including pre-K preparation “meetings”, library visits, or certain cultural events, we do split the group by age.