Rainbow Chimes’ implementation of the Infant/Toddler program is sensitive to meeting the individual needs of each child. The child’s physical, social and emotional needs are respected and accommodated.

General Info
Choose & Do
Verbal Supports
Key Experiences
Daily Routine

General Info Infants are always held while being bottle-fed and older babies are seated in appropriate seats. No child is ever left in a crib for more than 15 minutes if not asleep. Diapers are checked regularly, and although all diapering materials such as lotions, powders, etc. are chosen by the parent, only disposable diapers are permitted. Stringent sanitary procedures exceeding Department of Health standards are always followed. Detailed information regarding feeding, sleeping, diapering and general disposition are recorded in a report received by parents daily.

Choose & Do When a child nears one year old and begins early verbalizing of desires, we begin to use an adaptation of High/Scope principles developed at RCI called Choose and Do. This verbal technique allows the child to initiate activities, by responding to an open-ended question such as “What would you like to play with? (see, touch, hold, taste, etc.…).” The child’s response (verbal or body language) is encouraged by the teacher, repeated to clarify and reinforce the words, then together they carry out the event.

Verbal Supports The support and encouragement of open communication between teacher and child and among children will broaden children’s perspectives as they learn to share ideas that are not directly imposed on them by the teacher. Especially important, again, is the role of the teacher as a mentor and not as an authoritative figure. If children interact most frequently with authoritarian adults, they will not learn the balanced give-and-take that is essential in much human interaction.

Additional verbal methods of modeling actions and behaviors, including parrot-talk (repeating) and parallel play, are implemented. Parallel play, an effective adaptation of High/Scope for very young children, initiates active learning by asking such questions as: “I’m sitting here next to you, building a tower with blocks. What are you making your blocks into?” These thought-provoking questions help the children associate words with thoughts and concepts while commencing the Plan…Do…Review process.

Key Experiences In the High/Scope approach, “key experiences” are used as a basis for planning and developing activities that are appropriate to the growing child. These activities provide experiences that allow the child to explore, in an active learning environment, the following areas of development.
The first four key experiences listed deal with infant and toddler social development — how they begin to relate to others and what they find out about themselves, their relationship with others, how they communicate and their own physical development.

Social relationships. How infants and toddlers relate to others, how they express those feelings evolving in these relationships.

• Sense of Self. How infants and toddlers distinguish themselves from others and their environment; how they express that knowledge in problem-solving and in their relationship with others and their environment.
• Communication. All the ways infants and toddlers communicate with others — both for what they need and for the joy of interacting with others.
• Physical Development. Discovering and experiencing their own physical changes and corresponding changes in capabilities. This includes moving themselves, moving with an object and also moving to music.

The next five key experiences deal with the ways in which infants and toddlers begin to understand their world — how things are related to each other; how some things share characteristics; how to begin to make some order and sense of their surroundings, spatially and temporally.

• Exploring Objects/Pre-Representation. How infants and toddlers discover the world of objects and their uses. Some of this discovery occurs through their own direct experience and some by watching and imitating others.
• Exploring Attributes of Objects/ Classification. How infants and toddlers develop their investigation of objects and begin to notice similarities and differences.
• Comparing and Counting. How infants and toddlers begin to organize their world in a numerical way, noticing differences in size and quantity.
• Time. The development of infants’ and toddlers’ perceptions about time intervals and the order of events in their day.
• Space. Infants and toddlers becoming familiar with spatial concepts by using their bodies and senses, and through the use of materials that allow them to explore spatial relationships.
  

Infant and Toddler Daily Routine (Sample)

*Notes: Children’s individual sleeping and eating patterns are accommodated as needed. Diapering occurs on an hourly basis, or as needed. Small Group Time may be with an individual child or a group of from two to four children.