Walking or 14 Months to 24 Months (approximately)
Welcome to our Toddlers Classroom!
About the Class and Classroom
Each day at The Octopus Garden, we balance the daily schedule between child-directed activities and teacher-directed activities. During group times we do encourage the children to participate but they are also allowed to play in individual activities.
Skills We Work on
The transition into the Toddler room can sometimes be a difficult one. In addition to adjusting to a new classroom, the children are often going from two naps a day to only one, giving up their bottle and learning to nap on a mat. They are however, very adaptable. At this age, your child is seeking his/her independence and with guidance and encouragement from us, this will be a fun, stimulating experience.
We teach communication skills, such as listening, speaking, gross and fine motor skills, rhythmic activities, art, music, and social/emotional skills, which include self-help, concepts and self-control. We try to teach the children to use their words and to be gentle with their toys as well as one another.
Our Room
In the Toddler Room, we offer centers for our young friends. The block, book, and dramatic play centers are open during most free play times, while art and sensory are only available once or twice during the day.
Blocks and books are changed weekly. The manipulatives are changed weekly, however, not all toys are changed at once. This gives us more opportunity to introduce only a few new toys at a time in order to teach the children how to use each toy.
Our dramatic play center is changed almost every two weeks in order to capture your children’s imaginations.
Our Day
Our morning begins with free play and center time. We begin activities in a large group, where we enjoy singing, reading and finger plays. We also include arts and crafts in our morning activities. Some mornings we will also have free outside play, on the dedicated Toddler, tree-shaded playground, depending on the weather.
There’s lots of hand washing throughout the day and after activities or outside play, we return to our classroom to get cleaned up for diaper changing and lunch. Toddler’s naptime is at 1:30, depending on the child. After naptime, your child will enjoy their afternoon snack with friends, loving and caring toddler teachers and more fun activities.
About Nap Time
Following lunch, children are encouraged to participate in clean up – another great opportunity to learn self-help skills. By this time, they are usually very tired and go directly to their mats where they either fall asleep on their own or wait until we are able to rub their backs to help them learn to quiet themselves. During naptime, calming music is played and also to help block out any disturbing noises. Naptime lasts approximately 2 ½ hours.
Lesson Plans
Each week a lesson plan is made to inform the parents of what is planned for the following week. The lesson plan is given to the parent and will be attached to the child’s daily sheet. We have numerous ideas planned each week for our class and they are always related to the theme of the week. Sometimes however, we may not always get a chance to do each activity planned. We use our lesson plan as a guide and a communication resource for our parents. Very often, you may also notice a theme is extended, if the class is really enjoying a particular event or idea.