The Curriculum

Our Teachers interact, observe and discover what children are interested in and encourage further discoveries by planning activities and asking questions to expand your child’s learning opportunities. Our curriculum is designed to foster a love of learning and the ability to ask questions, seek out answers and build self-confidence.

“Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong”
— Peter T. McIntyre.

Social Skills

SimplySmart provides a platform for your child to develop their social skills from a very early age. Social skills are a key component of success in the future. In a global economy your child needs the skills to be able to interact with the world. SimplySmart provides that through our multicultural program. The Events calendar encompasses a global view and exposes children to different cultures. We also have dress up clothes from around the world in our Dramatic center and have previously put together a book of our families dressed in garments from around the world. We have several different songs and books that our teachers sing and read with the children to show different cultures around the world.

Emotional Development

Assisting children to learn how to manage their emotions will help the children be successful in the world around them. We discuss classroom rules to teach them how to respect others and materials around them. We introduce, encourage and practice new social skills such as, sharing, negotiation, self-assertion, managing frustrations, recognizing their need for moment of quiet time and empathy.

Science

Through our Science Program the children explore the life cycle of various creatures and basic classification. There are six main classes of animals in the world: mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates. The children’s favourite life cycle is the life cycle of a butterfly and reading one of our favourite children’s books, The Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.

We also explore plants and their life cycle and the impact on the world around us. We teach respect for plants and trees through planting seeds, recycling and reusing. The children are able to explore the world around them using their 5 senses and each body part.

Language & Literacy

We promote early literacy, phonological awareness and a love and respect for books early on and we help children learn how to hold the book right side up and turning the pages right to left. We ask questions while reading to get their minds thinking about present, past and future. We also provide assistances identifying the letters in the alphabet in the book or around the room. Our Gamma classrooms have the children’s names posted around the room to help them recognize them. During morning circle we use Jolly Phonics, various songs, books and visual aids to make it fun to learn new letters and words.

The program is designed on the principles of multi-sensory learning and consists of four main styles of learning: visual (looking at the letter), auditory (listening to the letter sound), kinesthetic (through body movement to form and trace letters), and tactile (drawing letters in sand or printing the letter on a sensory tray like sandpaper).

Artistic Skills

Children are encouraged to be creative, use their imagination to explore, manipulate different textures and art materials in their classrooms. Exploring primary colours and how to make secondary colours. Recycling and reusing materials collected by the room helps the children understand how to respect the environment.

Mathematical Skills

At SimplySmart math and number awareness is taught through day to day activities. The teachers will work with the children to sort, make patterns and identify differences and similarities between classroom materials. They will make charts to visually show the differences to the children as well.