OAK PARK STAFF

All full time staff members at Oak Park have obtained their diplomas in Early Childhood Education, and are registered with the College of Early Childhood Educators. Lakshmi Narain in the Kindercare Room has received a Prime Minister's Award for Excellence in Early Childhood Education.

CLASSROOMS

There are four classrooms at Oak Park. All classrooms use Emergent Curriculum which is a way of planning curriculum based on the children's interets and passions as well as the teacher's. Planning an emergent curriculum requires observation, documentation, creative brain storming, flexibility and patience. Rather than starting with a lesson plan which requires a "hook" to get the children interested, emergent curriculum starts with the children's interests.

TODDLER ROOM

Welcome to the Toddler Room! It is a fun and exciting place to be. This is the youngest age group at Oak Park. The children in this room range from 18-30 months of age. The teacher-child ratio is 1:5, with the maximum amount of children in the room being 10.

The Toddler Room can be full of many "firsts" for the children. It may be your child's first time away from home and in a social group setting. We want to assure you that this is a safe and stimulating environment. Our wish is that your toddler be as comfortable in the Centre, and with the staff, as they are at home. The toddlers are in a stage of development where they are accomplishing many new milestones: first words, first achievements, and first friends. As the staff, we are there every step along the way as your child grows and develops. Extra hugs and cuddles are what we specialize in! Ultimately the main goal of the Toddler room is to create an atmosphere where children can feel free to be children.

JUNIOR ROOM

The Junior preschool group is the next step up from the Toddler Room. Children in this room range from 2 1/2 to 31/2 years of age. There are 8 children and one staff. We also have the pleasure of having students from Fanshawe College and Oakridge Secondary School in our classroom. The children look forward to seeing and interacting with them and they greatly enhance our program. This is a busy group; we are gaining more independence by learning to do things by ourselves like dressing for outside and getting our shoes on. We also enjoy a wide variety of activities that promote growth. Puzzles, colouring/gluing, small manipulate toys such as connecting toys, peg boards etc., all help promote fine motor skills. House centre and block centre promote creativity, imagination and role playing. We have sorting and matching games to promote thinking and logic. There is also a huge playground where a big climber, bikes and scooters, balls, and lots of space for games help promote gross motor skills. The Junior Room is always a fun room, full of energy, smiles and laughter!

SENIOR ROOM

The Senior Room has a lot of creative fun in the room. The children have moved up from the Junior Room and are approximately 3-4 years old. Their days are busy with a mix of planned activities and free play for the children to learn and explore. We incorporate the children's interest in our program through small group time, craft time and having various materials throughout the room. Our group time consists of learning the alphabet, recognizing colours, counting, sounding out words, discussing the calendar and learning about the weather. We also embrace the many cultures we have in the classroom by learning words in different languages. Music group time is a great learning experience which reinforces social, language, physical, cognitive and emotional skills through games, music and rhymes. During the day we offer activities that allow children to practice their fine motor skills (manipulating toys, painting, colouring, puzzles, etc.) and gross motor skills (outdoor play, building with large blocks and yoga twice a month).

KINDER CARE

The Kindercare Class has the oldest children at Oak Park. The class is comprised of children who are in the JK or SK class at school, or are soon going to be at school in JK, SK or Grade 1. The highlights of our program include learning to count up to 100, recognizing numbers and lower case and upper-case aphabet letters, doing simple addition and subraction (basic math geared towards their age), and learning basic words and phonics. The children work on their story picture journals almost daily. We do a hands-on science activity once a week. As part of our multicultural program we try to celebrate each child's cultural heritage, including learning different culture's greetings and counting to 10, listening to their music and locating the people and culture on the world map.