At 2.5 years, children have fully emerged from solitary to parallel play. Children begin to self-manage their own activities and the classroom becomes child-initiated and teacher-directed. Child care programs can help your kids to grow in multiple ways! To match these adaptive changes, the curriculum for the juniors child care program is refined and prepares children for our master’s curriculum used in preschool classes for older children.

Child Care Programs for 2.5 to 3-Year-Olds

In this stage, your child is not a baby anymore! Instead of depending on multiple senses to identify an object or activity, they are beginning to recognize more and more of the world around them. And, they are starting to form relationships with peers. Our teachers are skilled at aiding the children through communication and conflict resolutions that may result from these developing peer relationships. This is an important life skill which allows children to reason and comprise that will set them up with the skills to have successful relationships in the future. Along with nurturing new relationships, children will actively practice developing speech and communicating feelings wants, and needs with words.

Tracking Your Child with Our Junior Program Curriculum

We know that you’ll want to be kept in the loop with your child’s academic progress. So, we’ve come up with a way to track your child’s activities and development throughout his or her time in the Juniors 2.5-3 year learning program. Your child will be assessed based on communication skills, social development, and the approach to learning.

Tracking Your Child’s Social Development

Social development is crucial for a child of this age. So, we want to make sure each child is hitting social marks in development. We will assess if each child:

• Labels feelings
• Shows awareness of others’ feelings
• Plays side-by-side with other children
• Initiates social interaction with peers
• Takes turns during play with peers
• Begins to show empathy when someone is hurt or upset
• Participates in loosely structured group games
• Asks simple questions
• Notices differences
• Shows pride in achievements/accomplishments
• Makes choices
• Names emotions

Tracking Your Child’s Approach to Learning

I big part of schooling for children of this age is to make sure they begin to get excited about learning. It’s important to get children prepared and excited for learning so that they can have the best chance for a successful future. So, we track whether a child:

• Shows interest in new and others’ activities
• Tries new ways of doing things and begins to take some risks
• Proposes an idea for an activity
• Completes simple projects
• Listens and participates in story time
• Invents new uses for everyday materials
• Displays understanding of how objects work together
• Uses imagination during play
• Carries toys or objects when walking
• Walks backward
• Jumps in place
• Walks in a straight line
• Runs with balance
• Scribbles with crayons and begins to imitate marks
• Unscrews small lids
• Stacks, sorts, and strings items
• Exhibits eye-hand coordination
• Plays with materials of different textures
• Indicates wet or soiled diaper

Tracking Your Child’s Communication Development

Undoubtedly, another major key to learning at this stage of life is to continue developing speech and other ways of communication. So, during our child care programs, we track that children:

• Follow simple verbal direction
• Recall words from simple songs
• Identify at least three body parts
• Use mostly two and three syllable words
• Answer simple questions
• Follow two-step directions
• Can recount an event
• Listen to short and simple stories
• Begin to demonstrate turn-taking in conversation
• Use manners
• Begin to identify letters in own name
• Know the right side of a book
• Use words for pictures
• Can recite familiar words in a book when read to

Tracking Your Child’s Cognitive Development

Finally, we want to make sure all of the children in our child care programs are on track with cognitive development. So, we track if your child:

• Notices and describes how items are the same or different
• Makes choices when given options
• Connects objects and ideas
• Uses active exploration and trial and error to solve problems
• Communicates to request assistance
• Provides a simple description of a person or object that is not present
• Identifies pictures of familiar objects correctly
• Plays make-believe with props
• Counts to at least five
• Imitates rhymes or songs
• Uses size words
• Fills and empties containers
• Identifies at least two geometric shapes
• Creates or copies simple shapes
• Sorts objects by one characteristic
• Asks simple questions
• Explores and investigates the world
• Can state his or her first name
• Enjoys poems, stories, and songs