Curriculum

Our program provides learning experiences that are developmentally appropriate, acknowledge diverse learning needs and encourage children’s natural curiosity and enthusiasm. Children will have the opportunity to construct their own knowledge and ‘learn how to learn’ through meaningful activities. The focus for our program is to provide high-quality play with a strong foundation in emergent literacy, numeracy and science skills that engage and promote learning. We believe in and teach methods of inquiry to encourage questioning skills, data collection, prediction and observations with opportunities to share. Children are encouraged to develop their own learning strategies, to solve problems, experiment, plan, revise and reflect on their learning. Students will have many opportunities to build from existing ideas and concepts and to express themselves through stories, music, plays and art.

Active Explores partners with I’m For Kids to provide screening, assessment and support for children which may include Program Unit Funding (PUF), Mild/Moderate Funding (M/M), English as a Second Language (ESL), and family support. Funding is provided through the Government of Alberta. Please visit www.humanservices.alberta.ca/disabilities-services for more information

What your Child Will Learn?
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Early Literacy Skills

Literacy is the foundation for all learning and will be embedded in all areas of the child’s preschool experience. Listening, speaking, reading, writing, viewing and representing are essential in how a child learns and shares their understanding with others. Through various developmentally appropriate experiences and activities, students will further develop their communication, language and literacy skills.

  • Knowledge of print and alphabet
  • Phonological awareness
  • Conventions of print
  • Comprehension of books
  • Retelling stories
  • Emergent writing skills
  • Listening to and understanding language
  • Vocabulary
  • Expressive language

Early Numeracy Skills

Active Explorers will encourage mathematical language, creative problem solving, inquiry and reasoning during cooperative tasks, play and daily activities.

  • Classifying objects – sorting, comparing and matching
  • Seriating – relationships such as smaller than, bigger than
  • Counting
  • Determining and comparing quantity
  • Representing numbers in different ways (tallies, words, graphs, number)
  • Ordinal numbers and positions
  • 2-D and 3-D shapes
  • Identifying patterns
  • Measuring – (exploring through non-standard units of measurement)
  • Simple number operations (using counters to represent objects, one-to-one correspondence, more than/less than, adding and subtracting from a set)
  • Using spatial relations, direction and maps

Science & Inquiry

Active Explorers encourages curiosity and creativity through developmentally appropriate curricular experiences. Big ideas/inquiries inspired from the children will be used to springboard activities to help develop vocabulary while establishing interest in the social sciences. We will provide an avenue for creative learning opportunities by encouraging independence, individuality, discovery and use of the imagination.

  • Exploration
  • Observations
  • Predictions
  • Data collection and organization
  • Logical reasoning

Social Development

Active Explorers provides a nurturing and safe environment where every child is valued and respected. We believe relationships are integral to all areas of a child’s learning. Our classroom structure encourages and develops independence and self-confidence by reinforcing the “I can do it!” and “I know how!” mentality. At Active Explorers, children will learn intrapersonal and interpersonal skills to develop and maintain healthy relationships with others.

  • feelings – recognizing, expressing and regulating emotions
  • conflict resolution
  • responsibility
  • self-confidence
  • independence
  • cooperation
  • Positive attitude towards learning (persistence, engagement, curiosity and a sense of mastery

Physical Development

Physical activity will be integrated daily into the learning environment. Children will engage in various games and activities to enhance body and spatial awareness, movement, eye-hand coordination, balance, strength, flexibility, cooperation and sportsmanship. Our mission is to provide a safe and fun environment to build skills and to teach children about sports and physical fitness.

Activities:

Gymnastics:

Children will learn about body position and spatial awareness while exploring various gymnastics movements and equipment. They will have opportunities to practice movement control, patterning and sequencing of skills.

Yoga & Zumba:

Children will participate in dynamic movements, dance, breathing exercises, postures, imitation and play as a means of improving cardio, flexibility, strength, body awareness and listening skills.

Ball Skills:

Children will participate in activities to further develop eye-hand coordination including but not limited to catching, hitting, bouncing and kicking.

Movement and Games:

Children will develop endurance, strength, coordination and speed through the exploration of different movements and locomotion.