Our Philosophy
Magical Memories Learning Centre is dedicated to providing your children with an environment that is secure both physically and emotionally. We provide a safe and healthy environment for your children's development in all areas of their growth: physically, emotionally, intellectually and socially. The staffs are dedicated professionals trained to guide your children through their daily learning experience in a positive and personal way. Our program is flexible, yet structured, organized and consistent. A wide variety of activities are available through out your children's day to provide them with a stimulating and challenging learning environment. The children will choose many of their activities through out the day with the Early Childhood Educators guiding them in a positive manner in their play and experiences. By choosing their own activities, your child sets the direction in which they wish to go and is able to explore as fully as they wish to. These activities will include creative centres; manipulate centres, imaginative play centres, problem-solving centres, small muscle centre and large muscle play. Our children learn through play and learning centres help them develop the skills they require to grow into independent free thinking adults.
The Early Childhood Educators respect and understand your child's individuality so they are able to assist the children to develop and learn to their potential and abilities. The staff participates in your child's discovery process by providing an interactive, age-appropriate circle daily that involves a variety of planned activities, which include movement, music, science, literature, social studies, discussions, special visitors all related to the planned themes for the week. This environment allows your child to share his/her own experiences, talents, skills and interests with others.
A parent's interest and input into their child's intellectual, social and physical development is valuable. We share that interest and wish to form meaningful relationships with the parents as well. We have much to learn from our children and it is our sincere hope that together, we can discover and share the delights the children experience as they grow.
Infant Curriculum Statement
We provide learning environments and experiences that respond to the infants’ natural curiosity and emerging skills.
To ensure a consistent program and to ensure that the infants need for a bond with an adult we have 2 primary caregivers in our infant program and a same staff that covers the infant staff breaks. This also allows the parent to have a closer relationship with the staff caring for their infant child.
It is important that these environments are safe and clean.
Each infant has their individual schedule for eating, sleeping and playing, so we are flexible to meet these needs by providing a space for the children to nap as they wish that is kept as quiet as possible. For children requiring a bottle at various times throughout the day there is a feeding chair for the staff and infant to relax and bond during the bottle feeding. During the diapering procedure the staff uses this one on one time to talk to the infant giving them their full attention.
To encourage interaction and socialization between the infants, the infants sit in highchairs that are lowered and facing each other so they are on the same level as the toddlers at their table and the staff that are sitting with them at meal times. This encourages interaction between all the children and staff. The staff sits at the children’s level and encourages the toddlers to interact as much or as little as the children wish to. A staff person will read a book and encourage the children to sit with her to listen to the story or build with blocks with a small group of children having a running dialogue about what is happening. When two or more children are interacting the staff facilitates there play with a dialogue and asking questions. The children are taught empathy and other emotions through words and example. For example the staff will hug a child after they have been pushed and say to the child that pushed “Amy is sad because you pushed her. It hurts your friends when they are pushed”
Art, science and outdoor activities are generally based around a common theme. We feel it is very important to encourage independence so we use equipment and materials that the infants explore and master by themselves, assisting them to learn according to their own speed and individual learning styles. All toys and equipment are at the children’s level to give them access to the materials provided. We provide a variety of equipment and toys for the children which includes blocks of various sizes and textures, balls, push and pull toys as well as shape sorters as well as other various small motor, cognitive and dramatic play experiences. There is also a infant/toddler gym with climbing and crawling and various other activities for the children to explore.
There is a wipe and write board on the wall of the infant room that all parents can see. It records food intake, nap time and length, diaper changes and times, as well as any comment the staff would like to remember to tell the parents. Also each child has a cubby that the centre leaves all correspondence for the family. Each child and parent is greeted at the beginning and end of each day. The staff encourages parents to share information with them as they share information about their child’s day. There is a primary caregiver in the infant room until 5pm daily to help with the bonding between staff and families.
Transition times are very stressful for the infant and toddler children so they are kept at a minimum. All children are given lots of warning when a transition time is coming. Also because we have a consistent routine the children usually know when to expect a change in their day. The staff explains to the children what is happening and why. For example “here let’s put on your coat so we can go outside. Your coat keeps you warm.”
The staff at Magical Memories Learning Centre set up the environment to ensure all the children’s needs are being met. They encourage the children to engage in activities throughout the day. The centre provides books and pictures depicting different ethnicities. We have dolls of different races to encourage acceptance of everyone. We encourage our parents to come in to the centre to discuss their own heritages with the children. We also have guests come to the centre to show the children their cultures. Examples of this are Métis musicians and aboriginal drummers. We have also had a Scottish piper and Ukrainian dancers. The staff encourages the children, they talk to the children accepting them for their own uniqueness. We celebrate the successes with the children and we encourage them when things are not what they want.
MAGICAL MEMORIES LEARNING CENTRE CURRICULUM STATEMENT
Magical Memories Learning Centre is an open, warm and inviting environment for parents, children and staff. The children can feel safe and cared about in our centre allowing parents to be assured that their children are well cared for and safe while they are away from them.
Staff greet both parents and children by name when they arrive and share information with them at the end of the day. Staff ensures that information is being passed from parents to centre and from centre to parents by way of incident reports, a monthly newsletter and staff talking to the parents. Because of the size of our centre and the m any rooms that we have, staff communicate between each other verbally and by writing notes in the daily log book. This ensures that the children have the same experience no matter which area of the centre they are in.
To convey information to parents regarding their child’s learning and development, we put a section in each monthly newsletter to explain areas of the centre. An example is the block area. In the block area children learn social skills, math skills and science skills.
The environment is planned with the children in mind. Children learn best through investigation and experiences so the learning centres are set up to enhance and encourage this. The learning centres are set up to best support various types of learners and their developmental level as well as to encourage discovery and investigation. Children can play alone, in a small group or a larger group depending on their need at the time. We encourage independence and for children to think and do for themselves. To enhance and encourage interactions between children, the staff help children to learn how to problem solve between themselves. The staff introduce new children to the older children in the centre and encourage our “older” children to help the “newer” children by showing them where the toys are and to have them join in their group to play. At meal times staff sit with the children and encourage the children to talk amongst themselves and with the staff. To encourage creative thinking and problem solving staff ask open ended questions.
Our centre is theme based. The staff discusses what areas of development that we feel need to be focused on through the year as well as what is happening seasonally and in our community to decide on the weekly themes. The staff pre-plan circle and art daily keeping in mind the developmental level for the children in their group to ensure all areas of development are being met. Spontaneous activities happen throughout the day as staff observe the interests of the children. They enhance or extend the children’s activities and learning. An example of this would be to add cars to the block area because the children are creating roads. Transitions are kept to a minimum to ensure that the children have large blocks of time to discover and play because we know that children learn best through play. We also extend play through discussions and open ended questions. Open ended questions have no right or wrong answer and they give the children an opportunity to think bout many different possibilities. Some examples of the connections between the children’s experiences and the development of the children are:
We provide open ended art to promote the children’s creativity.
We provide water play to promote science skills.
We provide block play to promote math and science skills.
We provide creative play to promote social awareness.
The staff at Magical Memories Learning Centre set up the environment to ensure all the children’s needs are being met. They encourage the children to engage in activities throughout the day. The centre provides books and pictures depicting different ethnicities. We have dolls of different races to encourage acceptance of everyone. We encourage our parents to come in to the centre to discuss their own heritages with the children. We also have guests come to the centre to show the children their cultures. Examples of this are Métis musicians and aboriginal drummers. We have also had a Scottish piper and Ukrainian dancers. The staff encourages the children, they talk to the children accepting them for their own uniqueness. We celebrate the successes with the children and we encourage them when things are not what they want