Social/emotional development

In the first year of development students begin to develop socially. Learning Ladders provides infants with the opportunity to develop new relationships with their teachers. Some of the skills that you will see begin to develop during your child’s time in the infant room are:

• • Recognize faces
• • Give smiles and laughs
• • Pay attention to own name
• • Become interested in other babies
• • Look at self in the mirror
• • Express different emotions
• • Respond when they are being spoken to
• • Give affection and love
• • Show preference to people that they know
• • Imitate actions

Physical Development

Between the ages of 2-12 months students develop rapidly. Their physical development is an area where this is extremely evident. Their gross motor skills are continuously developing. Gross Motor development involves the larger, stronger muscle groups of the body. In early childhood, it is the development of these muscles that enable a baby to hold his/her head up, sit, crawl and eventually walk. Infants also begin to develop fine motor skills. Fine motor refers to the movements we make with the small muscles of the hands. students start to use their hands right at birth to explore their own bodies and the world around them. Their fine motor skills develop as their whole body starts to move and become more stable. At Learning Ladders we provide an environment where students are able to thrive and develop physically.

Cognitive Development

One area that begins and continues to develop during this age is your child’s communication skills. Communication includes any and all ways that a baby lets us know what they need and how they are feeling. That can be done with facial expression, body language, crying, eye contact or sounds. Some of the communication skills that are developed at Learning Ladders are:

• • Tries to imitate sounds or facial movements (lip circle, sticking out tongue, etc.)
• • May say “mama” and/or “dada”
• • Shouts or vocalizes loudly to get attention
• • Babbling starts to sound like “real speech”
• • Plays Peek-a-boo
• • Repeats a syllable or sequence of sounds often
• • Uses smiling and crying to indicate how they are feeling
• • Shows affection for special and significant people in their life

Social/Emotional Development

During this time in your child’s development you begin to see more interaction among your child and others. Your child will begin to understand and control their own emotions. Some of the areas of development that you can expect to see are:

• • Begin to say ‘no’ to bedtime and other requests
• • Imitate adults’ actions and words
• • Understand words and commands, and respond to them
• • Hug and kiss parents, familiar people and pets
• • Bring things to “show” other people
• • Begin to feel jealousy when she is not the center of attention
• • Show frustration easily
• • Be able to play alone for a few minutes
• • Develop a range of emotions

Physical Development

During this time students continue to develop gross and fine motor skills. Some of those skills include:

• • Start walking independently
• • Attempt to run, or runs with stiff posture
• • Squat down to pick something up
• • Seat self on small chair
• • Point to pictures in books
• • Build a tower using 2 blocks
• • Use her hands together to hold a toy at the middle of her body
• • Scribble with a crayon
• • Point with his pointer finger
• • Hold her own cup and drink, with some spilling
• • Feed himself using a spoon, with some spilling
• • Remove his own socks
• • Put her hat on her head

Teachers at Learning Ladders aid in the development of these skills by storytelling and encouraging students to participate in classroom activities.

Cognitive Development

At this age students are becoming increasingly aware of their surroundings and want to explore them. As your children play and interact with the people and objects around them, they learn about their body, their home, and the world around them. Understanding language is far more important to your toddler than actually speaking it. Once they really understand, they will communicate with you.

At Learning Ladders teaching and play go hand in hand. Everything to the child is fun and a discovery. Learning to recognize letters of the alphabet in a colorful book is just as much fun as playing in a sandbox. Learning Ladders provides toys such as balls, building blocks, musical toys, and dolls to support the cognitive development of students.

Social/Emotional Development

At this age students become more aware of themselves and their ability to make things happen. They express a wider range of emotions and are more likely to begin an interaction with others. Students of this age will:

• • Initiate play
• • Express negative feelings
• • Show pride and pleasure at accomplishments
• • Show assertiveness and direct others
• • Become more helpful

Physical development

At this age students are refining their gross motor skills. At Learning Ladders we provide movement activities that help students meet the following age appropriate milestones:

• • Walk alone
• • Pull toys behind
• • Carry a large toy
• • Kick a ball
• • Scribble
• • Build a tower of 4 or more blocks
• • Stand on tips of toes

Cognitive Development

At this age your child is starting to understand the relationship between objects. For example the task of matching similar shapes will become an accomplishable activity. Students will also begin to recognize the purpose of numbers in counting objects, and become much more interested in winding up toys and turning lights and appliances on and off. Students' play begins to become more complex. Students will start stringing together different activities to create a logical sequence. Instead of drifting randomly from one toy to another, he may first put a doll to bed and then cover it up. Or he may pretend to feed several dolls, one after the other.

Social/Emotional Development

Students at this age explore everything. Students at this age are more likely to begin developing friendships and playing independently with other children. They also begin to communicate more effectively with adults and other students. Some of the skills that students will begin to exhibit are:

• • Being assertive to their preferences and saying, “no” to adult requests.
• • Show awareness of their own feelings and communicate them to others.
• • Experience rapid mood shifts
• • Watch other students

Physical Development

Students have progressed leap and bounds in their physical development. They begin to acquire additional fine and gross motor skills including the following:

• • Stack five or more blocks
• • Turn a doorknob
• • Hold crayons or pencils (but not as easily as an adult)
• • Draw a horizontal line
• • Manipulate eating utensils (but not holding them the way an adult would)
• • Suck through a straw
• • Remove shoes and socks
• • Work puzzles with knobs
• • Wash hands

Cognitive Development

Students at this age are continuously learning. Learning Ladders supports the continued development of the following skills:

• • Student will be able to understand the differences in sizes and textures. He or she will be able to differentiate between large and small, short and tall, soft and hard.
• • Student can tell you his or her name, as well as be able to identify some colors when asked.
• • Student loves to engage in pretend and make believe play.

Social/Emotional Development

Students at this age can hold their strong feelings inside a little bit, but their feelings can easily burst out in a rush of excitement, fear and frustration. Losing control of such big feelings can be very frightening for them and they need plenty of tenderness, compassion and reassurance that they are loved. They are sometimes able to imagine how other people feel, but most of the time their own feelings of jealousy and loving passion for the people in their family are so strong that they don’t have room for imagining other people’s feelings.

Students at this age copy the actions of adults and other students. This is why it is so important for parents and teachers to be positive role models and act in a way that students are able to look up to and imitate.

Physical Development

Students at this age are confident in their physical abilities. Many become very adventurous and common accomplishments at this age are:

• • Student will be able to jump with both feet together. Student will be able to hold crayons and scribble on paper.
• • Student will be able to run and play chase.
• • Student will be able to ride a tricycle.
• • Student will be able to dress himself or herself.
• • Student will be able to climb.
• • Student can feed himself or herself.
• • All primary teeth should have emerged.

Cognitive Development

Your toddler’s language is probably developing very quickly at this stage. This development allows parents and teachers to:

• • Understand what your child is thinking and allows your child to communicate their thoughts and emotions.
• • Often their words or sentences don’t make sense to you, but clearly the more they are successful in getting their message across the more they will want to communicate with you.

At this stage students should be accomplishing many things including:

• • Many students are naming lots of things such as dog, ball, drink, and by the end of this year most are saying short sentences.
• • Many students are able to follow an instruction such as ‘bring your shoes here’.
• • They will still get ‘you’ and ‘me’ mixed up sometimes.
• • Most students of this age will not be able to say all of their words clearly. Some sounds are much harder to say than others

lB Learner Profile

To begin learning about IB PYP teachers will introduce IB Learner Profile Attributes. Attributes such as Inquirers, Thinkers, Communicators, Principled, Open-Minded, Caring, Balanced, Reflective, and Courageous will expose students to characteristics of a global citizen.

In Pre- K 3 emphasis is on the International Baccalaureate: Primary Years Programme that begins with the Programme of Inquiry. An inquiry based program where students will explore the transdisciplinary theme, their central idea, key concepts and related concepts in which the central idea is based on and the lines of inquiry which will invoke questioning

IB: Primary Years Programme

Students and teachers unpack the meaning of each attribute and how they can be applied to students’ everyday experience. Using the lines of inquiry students dive into and explore the transdisciplinary themes such as, Who we are, Where we are in place and time, How do we express ourselves , How the world works, How do we organize ourselves and Sharing the Planet. In this framework of the PYP, the S.T.E.A.M philosophy is incorporated to create a well-rounded curriculum that includes literacy as well.

S.T.E.A.M.

Science: Slides and bouncing balls provide a natural physics lab. The slide is an experiment in gravity, and swings are laws of motion in action.

Technology: Interactive activities allow for greater acquisition of academic concepts.

Engineering: Tinkering and building to gain an understanding that the whole is the sum of all its’ parts.

Art: Students express their creativity through painting and drawing utilizing an assortment of art medians.

Mathematics: Age appropriate patterning, exploring shapes, counting, estimating, sorting, and comparing/contrasting promote number sense.

There is a series of Scopes and Sequences that are used to evaluate our students:

• • Students gain an understanding and are aware of their similarities and their differences that are later reflected upon in order to learn and understand themselves better.
• • We enjoy and experience different forms of arts.
• • We collect information to make sense of the world around us.
• • Make and test predictions.
• • Identify roles, rights and responsibilities in society.
• • Engage in a variety of different physical activities.
• • We enjoy and experience different forms of arts.
• • We can enjoy and learn from creating art.

Social/Emotional Development

At this age students are becoming much more independent. In addition, their social skills are also beginning to improve greatly.

Students may now be able to cooperate with his or her friends, take turns, and may begin to show some problem-solving skills. At this point in development, your child should be able to:

• • Imitate parents and friends
• • Show affection for familiar family and friends
• • Understands the idea of “mine” and “his/hers”
• • Show a wide range of emotions, such as being sad, angry, happy, or bored

Students at this stage of development have a very active imagination. Fantasy and pretend play becomes more interesting and involved. Learning Ladders has a variety of activities that provide students an outlet for their creativity.

Physical Development

Your busy preschooler continues to be on the move. Some of the Physical tasks that they should be able to accomplish are:

• • Walk up and down stairs, alternating feet — one foot per step
• • Kick, throw, and catch a ball
• • Climb well
• • Run more confidently and ride a tricycle
• • Hop and stand on one foot for up to five seconds
• • Walk forward and backward easily
• • Bend over without falling

Students at this age are becoming much more agile At this point in their development, students should be able to:

• • More easily handle small objects and turn a page in a book
• • Use age-appropriate scissors
• • Copy circles and squares
• • Draw a person with two to four body parts
• • Write some capital letters
• • Build a tower with four or more blocks

Cognitive Development

This is the age where students become very verbal. Some of the linguistic milestones that should be met at this age are:

• • Say their name and age
• • Speak 250 to 500 words
• • Answer simple questions
• • Speak in sentences of five to six words, and speak in complete sentences by age 4
• • Speak clearly
• • Tell stories

Students at this age will start asking lots of questions. “Why is the sky blue? Why do birds have feathers?” Questions, questions, and more questions! While it may be annoying at times, asking questions is a normal developmental milestone. In addition to asking “why?” all the time, students at this age should be able to:

• • Correctly name familiar colors
• • Understand the idea of same and different
• • Pretend and fantasize more creatively
• • Follow three-part commands
• • Remember parts of a story
• • Understand time better (for example, morning, afternoon, night)
• • Count, and understand the concept of counting
• • Sort objects by shape and color
• • Complete age-appropriate puzzles
• • Recognize and identify common objects and pictures

IB: Primary Years Programme

Students and teachers unpack the meaning of each attribute and how they can be applied to students’ everyday experience. Using the lines of inquiry students dive into and explore the transdisciplinary themes such as, Who we are, Where we are in place and time, How do we express ourselves , How the world works, How do we organize ourselves and Sharing the Planet. In this framework of the PYP, the S.T.E.A.M philosophy is incorporated to create a well-rounded curriculum that includes literacy as well.

S.T.E.A.M.

Science: Slides and bouncing balls provide a natural physics lab. The slide is an experiment in gravity, and swings are laws of motion in action.

Technology: Interactive activities allow for greater acquisition of academic concepts.

Engineering: Tinkering and building to gain an understanding that the whole is the sum of all its’ parts.

Art: Students express their creativity through painting and drawing utilizing an assortment of art medians.

Mathematics: Age appropriate patterning, exploring shapes, counting, estimating, sorting, and comparing/contrasting promote number sense.

There is a series of Scopes and Sequences that are used to evaluate our students:

• • Knowing how we are similar to and different from others helps shape our understanding of self.
• • People make meaning through the use of symbols.
• • Organizing objects and events helps us to solve problems.
• • Use a variety of instruments and tools to measure data accurately
• • Formulate and ask questions about the past, the future, places and society
• • Safe participation requires sharing space and following rules.
• • People listen and speak to share thoughts and feelings.
• • The pictures, images, and symbols in our environment have meaning.

Social/Emotional Development

As students grow into early childhood, their world will begin to open up. They will become more independent and begin to focus more on adults and students outside of the family. They will want to explore and ask about the things around them even more. Their interactions with family and those around them will help to shape their personality and their own ways of thinking and moving. At this age students are beginning to understand their feelings but still need assistance in expressing these emotions. If they find something funny, they’ll laugh hysterically. If something makes them feel sad or angry, they will burst into tears. Your preschooler is also a budding comedian. They are starting to develop a sense of humor, and love being silly and making people laugh. Empathy also begins to emerge around age 4. Four-year-olds are starting to understand that others have feelings, too, and they can relate when a friend is feeling sad or hurt.

Physical Development

At this age students’s body movements are becoming more coordinated. They can run more smoothly and stop easily. They also love to hop and skip. They are beginning to throw a ball with some ease and use two hands to catch, missing infrequently. They are developing their balance and sense of equilibrium. They enjoy riding tricycles, and pushing and pulling wagons. Their fine motor skills are advancing. They can stack blocks 10 high and string beads. Completing a simple 10-piece puzzle is no longer a frustration but a victory. Coloring, painting, tearing and folding paper intrigue students at this age as they develop increasing control over their fine motor skills.

Cognitive Development

There are many skills that are necessary for your preschooler to retain in order for them to succeed in Elementary school. All of those skills are reinforced at Learning Ladders:

• • Learn how to solve problems. For example, she may ask another child to trade toys so they can each have a turn.
• • Observe objects with curiosity and notice differences, such as how some rocks are smooth and others are bumpy.
• • Explore cause and effect — shaking a jar of water, for instance, and noticing how it creates bubbles.
• • Practice thinking logically. They will be able to classify objects by size or likeness, for instance, and to recognize patterns.
• • Be aware of their own body in space. You may hear her say things like “I’m up high on the slide.”
• • Understand the concept of sequence
• • Use numbers and count.
• • Notice the features of people and animals that make them different.

IB: Primary Years Programme

Students and teachers unpack the meaning of each attribute and how they can be applied to students’ everyday experience. Using the lines of inquiry students dive into and explore the transdisciplinary themes such as, Who we are, Where are we in place and time, How do we express ourselves , How the world works, How do we organize ourselves and Sharing the Planet. In this framework of PYP the S.T.E.A.M philosophy is incorporate to create a well-rounded curriculum that includes literacy as well

S.T.E.A.M.

Science: Measurement and motion, the human body, seasons and weather, and plant and animal life cycles topics are integrated throughout the year.

Technology: Interactive stories allow for greater acquisition of academic concepts.

Engineering: Observing/exploring, testing and implementing their own ideas, assessing and reflecting to create a better product.

Art: Students express their creativity and academic knowledge through painting and drawing.

Mathematics: Use numbers to convey numeric concepts and describe physical world using geometric concepts.

There is a series of Scopes and Sequences that are used to evaluate our students:

• • Reflecting on our experiences helps us to understand ourselves better.
• • Our experiences and imagination can inspire us to create.
• • Understand that sets can be organized by different attributes
• • Interpret and evaluate data gathered in order to draw conclusions
• • Orientate in relation to place and time
• • Our bodies can move creatively in response to different stimuli.
• • People ask questions to learn from others.
• • We reflect on our artwork and the work of others.

Social/Emotional Development

In Kindergarten there are many social skills that are important for students to obtain. Some of those skills are:

• • Understands the difference between right and wrong and recognizes and respects authority figures.
• • Can communicate needs and feelings verbally in a socially appropriate manner and understands/recognizes that other people have feelings
• • Can play independently or in a small group without needing to be constantly supervised.
• • Skill: Is beginning to take turns, share, converse and play with other students without needing to be reminded and uses polite language.
• • Likes to make decisions for himself, explores new things and take some (safe) risks.

Physical Development

Your kindergarten child is mastering new physical skills. They are now more able to move their body the way they want to and, most likely, can run like the wind. In kindergarten your child will learn many new skills including:

• • Begins to establish right or left dominance, that is, show a preference for using one side of the body more strongly than the other.
• • Shows increased flexibility, strength and dexterity in small muscle groups.
• • Has the ability to climb stairs using alternating feet, can balance on one foot, hops, runs, skips and jumps.
• • Has the ability, coordination and muscle strength to be able to control breathing.
• • Can mimic movements and move in a variety of different directions.

Cognitive Development

In kindergarten, students build a foundation for all later academic disciplines by learning to think logically. Some skills that students of this age should be able to accomplish are:

• • Categorize objects. For instance, he may place blocks in a row from shortest to tallest, or group items by color.
• • Count ten or more objects.
• • Recognize and write numbers up to 10.
• • Sort objects into specific categories.
• • Compare the length, weight, and capacity of objects.
• • Identify and possibly draw shapes such as circles, squares, diamonds, rectangles, and triangles.
• • Understand broad concepts of time, including “yesterday,” “today,” and “tomorrow”.
• • Name the days of the week.
• • Identify the seasons of the year.

Soccer

Soccer develops agility, speed and stamina, and also teaches students the importance of teamwork. It can play an important part in your child’s physical and social development. Soccer helps teach students to be fit and agile. The activities that students work on with their soccer coach here at Learning Ladders build endurance, speed and coordination. The health benefits of soccer include stronger bones and muscles.

Martial Arts

One of the main benefits of taekwondo is improving a child’s strength and balance. Because taekwondo depends on kicking and fast hand techniques, practitioners learn to balance their weight on one leg to leave the other one free to strike. This also helps strengthen the muscles of the torso. Taekwondo can also help improve coordination. Arm and leg muscles become stronger as a child practices strikes. Learning the patterns and sequences of taekwondo requires concentration and attention, and sparring requires focus on both one’s self and one’s opponent. Taekwondo teaches breathing and meditation techniques to assist in learning focus. Taekwondo students must learn to follow directions from an instructor and are expected to show respect to the instructor. Taekwondo will not teach your child self-defense skills to directly deter bullies, but taking taekwondo might prevent your child from becoming a bully.

Music

Music helps develop brain areas involved in language and reasoning. Linking familiar songs to new information can also help imprint information on young minds. There is also a link between music and spatial intelligence. Students of the arts learn to think creatively and to solve problems by imagining various solutions, rejecting outdated rules and assumptions.

Through music study, students learn the value of sustained effort to achieve excellence and the concrete rewards of hard work. Music study enhances teamwork skills and discipline. Music provides students with a means of self-expression. Now that there is relative security in the basics of existence, the challenge is to make life meaningful and to reach for a higher stage of development. Music study develops skills that are necessary in the workplace. It focuses on “doing,” as opposed to observing, and teaches students how to perform, literally, anywhere in the world.

Spanish

Introducing young students to a second language gives them a chance at greater fluency. When students learn another language they are able to communicate with more people. They are able to acquire language skills when it still comes naturally and easily. They are also able to understand English better because both English and Spanish share roots in Latin. Studying Spanish increases students’s understanding of the English language and how different languages evolve, which can also help with learning English vocabulary.