Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/establishing-meaningful-experiences-in-an-early-childhood-setting/5020974/
Our center, Creative Children’s Learning Center @ 2200 Penn, opened in August 2011, as a Reggio-inspired full-time and back-up child care center. There were high expectations surrounding the opening of our center. A new center has the potential to be everything you desire. It was with all of this hope, anticipation, and expectation that we started the center with a new business model, a new philosophy, and new staff. We were unfamiliar with the abundance of resource materials available in the corporate setting because in our previous experiences we served either low-income families or families in a lab school setting. Working under this new organizational structure has allowed us to create a space that is not just a place where families are comfortable leaving their children while they work, but we have also begun to create a space where children, teachers, and parents have the opportunity to experience an early childhood setting in a way that challenges their traditional views about early education.As administrators in a brand-new child care facility, we have taken this exciting opportunity to implement what we see as essential elements for meaningful early childhood experiences for families. We believe this commitment begins and ends with our ...