A 100% commitment to lifelong learning in a safe and nurturing environment!
At Yelena’s Educational Place, we encourage our students to learn about the world around them and the community they live in. All children benefit from exposure to the world at large, as long as the exposure and experience are in line with their developmental ability to engage in an activity. For younger children, this might mean a walk to the Fire Station or to the mailbox to mail their friend a letter or a buggy ride around the neighborhood.
This provides much opportunity for language development as their teacher speaks to them about the things that they see as they go. At our program we have interest learning areas or centers: blocks/cars, dramatic play, sensory, art, music and movement, manipulative and outdoor play. We emphasize the importance of Play in a child’s intellectual, social, emotional and physical development. and support Play Based Philosophy — Playing to Learn/Learning to Play.
Our main goals are to support our children to be:
Creative: Support young children’s growth and development by encouraging creative thinking and novel approaches to solving problems. Children should have opportunities to create, express themselves in a variety of ways and approach problems from new perspectives. The focus of early learning experiences should be on the process instead of the product, promoting learning, exploring and thinking over achieving a specific result or answer.
Inquisitive: Encourage children to explore, seek new information and ask questions. Children should feel comfortable questioning information, testing out new ideas and simply playing with materials in new and unusual ways. Those supporting young children’s growth and development should create safe environments in which children can explore and experiment.
Flexible: Foster children’s ability to adapt to new situations, to be flexible in their responses and to actively engage in new environments. Exposure to new ideas, environments and situations in meaningful ways can promote resilience.
Critical thinkers: Encourage children to use critical thinking skills to help them organize and use the great amount of information available today. Those supporting young children’s growth and development should promote an understanding of the concepts behind specific skills (e.g., understanding quantity as well as learning the sequence of counting), provide opportunities to engage in higher-order thinking skills and encourage children to question the accuracy of information they receive.
Purposeful and reflective: Promote children’s engagement in purposeful action. Very young children should be actively involved in play and will benefit from reminders of the results of their actions. They should be encouraged to be reflective and to learn from mistakes.
Social learners: Social interactions form the basis for children’s learning. Encourage children to interact with adults and peers, ask questions and jointly solve problems. Those supporting young children’s growth and development should provide opportunities to learn through cooperative experiences with adults and children.
The Creative Curriculum: that we employ at our program is one that actively involves parents in their child's learning process by providing tools that extend the lessons of the day into the home at night. Another aspect of teaching we have tied into our program is based on the Connecticut Early Learning and Development Standards (CT ELDS) which serve as the foundation for supporting all young children in Connecticut, no matter where they live, play and learn. The CT ELDS are statements of what children from birth to age five should know and be able to do across the earliest years of development.
We make Play a part of our everyday life which strengthens us, helps us solve problems, boosts our creativity, reduces stress and helps us make friends.
We believe that each child possesses a marvelous capacity to learn. Learning is best accomplished in a place that is emotionally secure, nurturing, physically safe and fun!
We create a sense of home away from home for your child, with lots of room to grow.