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Our core curriculums for Early Learning (i.e. preschool children)
Lethbridge Kinder creates a flexible and responsive environment to the needs of children and teachers to create meaningful learning experiences together. Lethbridge Kinder's curriculums are influenced by the following elements:
Emergent Curriculum
Emergent curriculum is an early education approach where teachers design projects unique to a child or group of children. Learn what makes it successful, and find out if it is right for your child. Rooted in the work of noted early childhood theorists like Dewey, Piaget, and Vygotsky, emergent curriculum is defined as a process where teachers plan activities and projects based on the specific group of children they are working with, taking into account their skills, needs, and interests. In an emergent curriculum program, what happens in side by side classrooms will look different because of the varying skills, interests, and needs of the children within those classrooms. A teacher takes into account all that she knows about individuals and the particular group of children she teaches and plans accordingly.
Flight (Alberta's Early Learning and Care Framework)
“Flight - Alberta’s Early Learning and Care Curriculum Framework”, our philosophy prioritizes active participation, relationship building, flexible and adaptable methods, inquiry, and play-based learning (for the full document, see here). Flight is a curriculum framework intended to guide the significant work of early learning and child care educators with young children (ages 0 – before 6 years) and their families in centre-based child care and family day home settings. This is a flexible framework for thinking about how children learn and experience their worlds, as well as a guide that fosters strong early childhood communities. Children’s play is central to this curriculum framework as an active, exploratory, creative, expressive process, deeply embedded in children’s everyday experiences and through which children participate in, learn about, and actively make sense of the world.
to learn more about AB Flight's core concepts, click on the following links:
- The Image of the Child
- A Practice of Relationships
- Mighty Learners
- Responsive Environments
- Transitions and Continuities
- Holistic Play Based Goals
The Reggio Emilia approach
The Reggio Emilia approach is an educational philosophy and pedagogy focused on preschool and primary education. This approach is a student-centered and constructivist self-guided curriculum that uses self-directed, experiential learning in relationship-driven environments. The programme is based on the principles of respect, responsibility and community through exploration, discovery and play.
At the core of this philosophy is an assumption that children form their own personality during the early years of development and that they are endowed with "a hundred languages", through which they can express their ideas. The aim of the Reggio approach is to teach children how to use these symbolic languages (e.g. painting, sculpting, drama) in everyday life. This approach was developed by pedagogist Loris Malaguzzi and parents in the villages around Reggio Emilia, Italy. The name of the approach therefore derives its name from the city.
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Executive Function
Executive function and self-regulation skills are the mental processes that enable us to plan, focus attention, remember instructions, and juggle multiple tasks successfully. Just as an air traffic control system at a busy airport safely manages the arrivals and departures of many aircraft on multiple runways, the brain needs this skill set to filter distractions, prioritize tasks, set and achieve goals, and control impulses.
When children have opportunities to develop executive function and self-regulation skills, individuals and society experience lifelong benefits. These skills are crucial for learning and development. They also enable positive behavior and allow us to make healthy choices for ourselves and our families. Executive function and self-regulation skills depend on three types of brain function: working memory, mental flexibility, and self-control. These functions are highly interrelated, and the successful application of executive function skills requires them to operate in coordination with each other.
At Lethbridge Kinder, we follow early childhood development sciences and plan our typical executive function activities based on proven theories and practices. Some examples and guidelines can be seen in the following links:
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An Emphasis on Transparency and Parent Communication
Technically, the term teachable moment refers to a stage in a child’s development when he is most receptive to learning a certain concept or skill. Over time the phrase has taken on a less literal and more modern meaning. A teachable moment can be thought of as a quick moment in time when your child’s interest in a specific subject is at its highest, usually because of a conversation or immersion in a situation that brings on intense curiosity. For example, if you’re watching the news with your child and he’s riveted to a story about the destruction created by a hurricane, it can be the perfect moment to teach your child more about hurricanes and the forces of nature that create them.
We photograph and document teachable moments and communicate these moments with parents through an innovative communication tool HiMama. Parents can get a timely notification and view their children's teachable moments throughout the week.