Centres

Young children are active learners who touch, feel, experiment and create.  Centres are designed to encourage children to get involved, try out ideas, and rearrange their happenings to fit their level of understanding.  Centres also encourage the development of pretend play.  Research shows that pretend play is critical to a child's cognitive development and provides opportunities for children to use and learn language in social situations.

-Block Centre: The block centre will help your child learn many important things. They will be constructing buildings that represent the real world. They will be problem solving as they make decisions about the buildings and methods to use in construction. They will be working with others as they share ideas and cooperate on a project.

-Sensory Play Centres (e.g. Sand, Water, Paper): These centres provide children with opportunities to explore natural materials while learning about their world. In these centres, children can measure water, observe things that float and sink and experiment with different tools such as sifters and funnels.

-Book Centre: This is a comfortable place in our day care for young children to select books that they want to "read". These experiences nurture your child's interests in books and reading.

-Science Centre: This centre is designed to capture the interest of the young scientist (to feel the texture of things, smell, examine, and ask questions).

 

-Dramatic Centre: Pretend play, like language, involves the use of symbols(e.g. pretend objects are used as symbols to represent real and/or absent objects.) Our facility provides well-defined and varied pretend/dramatic play areas (e.g. store, kitchen, restaurant). The housekeeping centre is a traditional pretend play area, but an essential part of the classroom. It enables young children to develop language skills while playing and participating in familiar activities.  Young children learn how to get along with each other as they pretend they are mommies, daddies, grandparents and other relatives. They also begin to understand the responsibilities and needs of others.  In this centre, children learn about caring for others, cooking meals and cleaning up - skills they will need throughout their lives.