Curriculum & Learning Environment

• Our curriculum is aligned with NJ Early Childhood Standards, and we partner with parents to promote healthy growth and development of the whole child.  All classrooms utilize the Creative Curriculum approach to learning, which is a comprehensive, rigorously researched curriculum model that honors creativity and respects the role that teachers play in making learning exciting and relevant for every child.  Each classroom environment is organized around learning centers:
• Creative Art – The Creative Art Area is a place filled with materials that children can enjoy on a purely sensory level.  Here, children can create and represent their ideas in a visual form.  On a table or the floor, at an easel or a workbench, children draw, paint, knead, cut, glue and put together unique products of their own choosing.  Sometimes, they simply explore the materials and enjoy the process.  At other times, they create designs or make something that represents a real object, place or living thing.  Creative art is another language children use to express what they know and what they feel.
• Library/Writing Center – In the Library Area, children develop the motivation and skills necessary to read and write.  As they hear stories read aloud every day, look through books on their own, listen to story tapes, recite familiar stories, and make up their own stories, they also have many opportunities to grow in all areas of development.
• Dramatic Play – In the Dramatic Play Area, children break through the restrictions of reality.  They pretend to be someone or something different from themselves and make up situations and actions that go along with the role they choose.  When children engage in dramatic play, they deepen their understanding of the world and develop skills that will serve them throughout their lives.
• Blocks – Blocks naturally appeal to young children because they feel good to the touch, are symmetrical, and invite open-ended explorations.  When children construct, create and represent their experiences with blocks, they grow in each area of development.
• Science/Discovery and Math – The Science area is a place to find answers to questions.  It is a place to spark curiosity and wonder using new and interesting materials.  In the Science Area, children can use their senses to touch, feel, smell and see.  They manipulate objects and observe what happens next.  Teachers help nurture children’s curiosity by joining children in the Science Area and posing questions.  Children respond by using their thinking skills to investigate and explore.  In the Science Area, all areas of development can be enhanced.
• Music and Movement – Music naturally delights and interest’s children.  By including time for music and movement, we provide an outlet for children’s high spirits and creative energy.  Music and movement experiences help develop both sides of the brain (an important finding in recent brain research) and contribute to children’s social/emotional, physical, cognitive, and language development.
• Sand and Water – Play with sand and water involves sensory experiences that appeal to young children.  They need little introduction to playing with these materials.  While sand and water play can delight the senses, it can also challenge children’s minds and stimulate all areas of development.
• At COTKA, each child is viewed as a unique creation of God, with different strengths, abilities, and rate of learning.  It is our goal to meet each child where he/she is in every area of development and guide him/her to achieve as much as possible during their exciting, formative years.  Through active engagement with the learning centers described above, children are encouraged to explore activities and materials at their own pace.  Each class plans weekly to create developmentally appropriate plans that focus of the developmental needs of the individual children, as well as the group, and that are embedded in the children’s interests.  Lesson plans are sent home each week, so parents always know what each classroom is teaching. 

• Exercise
• Balls
• Buildings
• Clothing
• Recycling

Sample Units

• Welcome to School
• All About Me
• Families
• Health and Safety
• Community Helpers
• Seasonal Changes
• Trees
• Plants
• Animals
• Exercise
• Balls
• Buildings
• Clothing
• Recycling