School Philosophy - Discovery Child Development Center

Discovery Child Development Center takes a project-based approach to preschool and kindergarten education where children are seen as active learners that learn through the exploration of their interests. In the project approach, students study a topic in-depth to gain a deeper understanding as well as learn through hands-on experiences about the chosen topic. Projects are voted on or decided by gauging student's interests -  giving our students ownership of what they learn. During each project, children are encouraged to observe, ask questions, formulate answers and reflect on their thoughts and findings. For example, when learning about mail, students began the project talking about what they knew about mail and what they wondered about mail. Teachers help children find answers to their questions through books, videos and planning field visits. During the mail project, children toured a post office and took pictures of what they saw. Upon returning to school, students narrated each picture and their experiences at the post office. The next step was re-creating their own post office in our classroom. In our classroom's post office, children enthusiastically write to each other and their family members mail and sort it into their mailboxes. Through this project, not only did children learn about mail, how it is sorted and delivered, but are excited to draw pictures and practice their writing skills and sounding out words. (Please see our pictures below for pictures from our mail project.) Other past project topics include airplanes, fire trucks, shoes, pumpkins, cars, shadows, bakery, books, and puppets. 

Our project work is one part of our curriculum. Our classroom teachers also complement our child-centered curriculum with teacher-guided whole-group and small-group learning activities to meet the educational needs of each child. At Discovery, we make it a priority to implement research-based practices and strategies that have been proven to create enthusiastic and motivated learners. 

Language Arts: Children learn reading and writing in a print-rich environment through the use of developmentally-appropriate strategies such as shared reading and writing, guided reading, interactive writing and journal writing. 

Math: Children learn early math skills such as sorting, counting, measurement, statistics and reasoning through the manipulation of objects, whole and small group activities, early robotics and project-based learning.

Science and Social Studies: Children will learn about themselves and the world around them through their exploration of the environment and project-based learning. 

Music and Movement: We have daily music and movement in our schedule where children sing, listen to music, participate in gross motor movement activities and use different instruments to explore music such as Remo children's drums, rhythm sticks, egg shakers, triangles, castanets, tone blocks, cymbals, maracas and sand blocks. 

Art: We create an appreciation of art by exposing children to different art mediums and projects. 

Spanish: Children will be introduced to Spanish with a daily Spanish-only circle time where children will sing, read and speak in Spanish. Our afternoon classrooms have a weekly Spanish-only circle time. 

Technology:  Pre-k, transitional-k and kindergarten students are challenged to problem solve and think critically through early robotics. Additionally, children will learn how to incorporate the use of videos, photographs and podcasts to document their observations, discoveries and learning.