(16 months to 2 years old)
We continue to encourage the children to explore what interests them at the toddler stage, now with a slightly more academic approach with the Abeka curriculum. Using books, stories, songs, and music to emphasize the importance of building strong language skills in toddlers, Abeka introduces the use of vocabulary words in daily activities and monthly themes to encourage continuous learning in all aspects of development!
Spring Hill Academy also strongly supports problem solving at the child’s developmental level. Our teachers allow the children to make child-sized decisions about their day-to-day activities and how they solve problems to develop strong social-emotional growth.
At Spring Hill, we will continue to build trusting relationships between the child and their teacher and believe that learning is about the process, not the product. At this stage, we are still encouraging children to find their own interests, particularly during free play and group play, choosing the duration of each period. Some scheduled time periods may include:
Free Play – when children are encouraged to discover toys around their classroom depending on their current interests, building independent learning and curiosities.
Group Play – when children are encouraged to play in a common area or with common materials as other children, building their social and socio-linguistic needs, as well as their problem-solving skills. Children will experience both large group time and small group time in order to encourage social-emotional development.
Outside time – when children may be taken outside for outdoor playtime on our playgrounds (weather permitting) to get some fresh air and explore various environments (indoors versus outdoors, classrooms versus playgrounds, carpeting versus grass, etc.); this also gives children the opportunity to explore indoor versus outdoor voices and have more noisy play time.
Toddler classrooms are also the building blocks of your child’s developmental growth, and there’s no better way to begin that process than with building blocks themselves! Children will be encouraged to use their refined motor skills by equipping solid building blocks for towering buildings, pencils and crayons to make their imaginative worlds come to life, and other mobile activities in the classroom and allowing the children to find their interests in the multitudes of activities available in the classroom.
Toddlers begin their learning by playing, so Spring Hill encourages children to learn through hands-on experiences in a safe and nurturing environment. Children at this age are addressed in the appropriate tone and manner and are given more independence to allow them the space to grow at their own pace and in their own way, with our teachers right behind them in case they need a helping hand.