Class: Ages 12-24 Months
| Class / Time | Activity |
|---|---|
|
8:30 am – 9:00 am |
Breakfast |
|
9:00 am – 9:30 am |
Playground C |
|
9:30 am – 10:00 am |
Circle Time Monday – S.T.E.A.M Room |
|
10:00 am – 10:30 am |
Large Group Activity |
|
10:30 am – 11:00 am |
Center Time 1st Fri of the month – Music with Mrs. Amy |
|
11:00 am – 11:30 am |
Small Group |
|
11:30 am – 12:00 pm |
Lunch |
|
12:00 pm – 12:30 pm |
Diapering Time |
|
12:30 pm – 2:30 pm |
Nap Time |
|
2:30 pm – 3:00 pm |
Snack |
|
3:00 pm – 3:30 pm |
Playground B |
|
4:00 pm – 4:30 pm |
Afternoon Circle, Day’s Recap |
|
4:30 pm – 5:00 pm |
Combine Rm 5 |
|
5:00 pm – 6:00 pm |
Final Dismissal |
* Schedules are Subject to Change
At Davie Academy, we believe that a child’s educational journey is a true partnership between parents and educators. Together, we build the essential foundation for each child’s academic and developmental success. To support this, we conduct school-wide assessments twice a year using the ASQ (Ages and Stages Questionnaire).
The ASQ is a parent-completed developmental screening tool designed for children from birth to age six. It helps identify each child’s strengths and potential areas for growth across key developmental domains—communication, fine and gross motor
skills, problem-solving, and personal-social development. This trusted tool is widely used by early childhood professionals to ensure children are meeting important milestones while also highlighting areas where they may benefit from additional support
or enrichment.
After each assessment, parents are invited to meet with their child’s teacher and/or the director to review the results, celebrate progress, and discuss personalized strategies for continued development. By working hand in hand, Davie Academy and our families
create a strong, collaborative foundation that helps every child reach their fullest
potential.
The ultimate toddler environment includes as stated by Wittmer and Peterson, “learning spaces are well-defined places with materials that support relationships and learning” (p.337). Therefore, the classroom includes a quiet area/book area, an active play area with dress-up and construction and blocks, an art area, an area for manipulative play puzzles and toys, a changing area and restrooms for children and adults, as well as an outdoor playground.
“Quiet spaces create opportunities for children to calm themselves; suck their thumbs; gather their energies; read alone, with another peer, or the teacher or the parent” (Witmer& Peterson, 2018, p.345). The classroom has a large quiet area which will allow toddlers to soothe and calm if needed upon entering and/or during the day. The area also includes individual cots and, soft toys for soothing and books and soft pillows/coaches for building pre-reading skills in children. “Toddlers love to look at books as they sit, walk, and toddle around” (Witmmer & Peterson, 2018, p. 357).
The next area is the one third of the class which is split into active play, dramatic play and blocks. “As an infant and toddler manipulates the blocks and then plays with them in a purposeful way, they are developing self-regulation” (Witmmer &Peterson, 2018, p.353). The block area may be useful to begin counting and manipulation with umbers as toddlers begin to stack and organize them within the area. The dramatic play corner includes dolls, mirrors, a table and a kitchen area. Within this dimension, infants and toddlers can initiate language and begin to practice their social skills using real-life dress-up clothing, pretend-play foods while recreating what they see from their caregivers at home as they cook in the kitchen. As shown by Wittmer and Peterson (2018), “classification is a concept that describes a child’s actions of comparing similarities and differences, sorting by various attributes, putting objects into different categories, and arranging objects by various characteristics” (p.360). All of these classifications can be manipulated in the kitchen or block area by toddlers within the class. Finally, the active play area includes, climbers of different variations, small steps to introduce large muscles skills and walling up and down, as well as large balls to create hand-eye coordination skills. This active play area promotes large motor skills and “provide spaces for infants and toddlers where they can use their large muscles to crawl, pull to stand, stand, walk, toddle, and run” (Wittmer & Person, 2018, p.360.)
The toddler room includes an art area, easel, sensory table, an eating table, a diaper area and several sinks attached to the feeding area, the diapering area and a restroom to begin potty training. The art area has easels and a drawing table to allow for children to be creative and experiment with the world around them. The myriad of activities introduced by Wittmer and Peterson (2018) which can be done in the art area include play dough, using markers, paints on the easel, allowing children to paint on large pieces of paper on the floor and even use ditto sheets for an art project. The art area is positioned next to the sinks so that children may clean up and wash their hands after they have finished being creative. The manipulative area allows for cognitive development and promotion of fine motor skills in children. “Infants and toddlers gain confidence in their ability to imitate, be intentional, persist at tasks, and problem solve when they are given opportunities to discover what they can do with toys and materials” (Wittmer & Peterson, 2018, p. 349). The stacking toys, large knob puzzles, ad string through sets in the manipulative toy shelf will allow children to adapt, create and learn new concepts to explore. Next to the restroom, a sensory table with sand/water is included. As shown by Wittmer &Peterson (2018), “sand in short sand/water table indoors and outdoors encourages toddlers to feel texture, pour sand through their fingers, and experiment with filling and emptying cups and other containers” (p.350).
Finally, children are given an opportunity, weather permitted to go and play outdoors. In the State of Florida, outside play is required within a licensed facility and allows for children to practice gross motor skills, as they explore the world around them and are given time to run around and breathe fresh air. In the left side of the class, through the hallway, an outside area exists, adjoining the toddler class. First, the accessibility is easily managed when exiting and entering to go outside and secondly the outdoor area is placed under shade structures which allows for children to hide for some time under the Florida sun and cool off with water from the fountain. The outdoor area includes, riding toys, small climbers and a playhouse, as well as another covered sand area. “Outdoor time brings opportunities for infants and toddlers to poke and dig in the sand and dirt, push and pull wagons, touch everything in sight, and feel the soft breezes on their faces” (Wittmer & Peterson, 2018, p.362).
References
Wittmer, D.S., & Peterson, S. H. (2018). Infant and toddler development and responsive program planning: A relationship-based approach (4th ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.