Early Learning Begins Here.

Our goal is to provide a program that meets the individual needs and interests of the children in our program.  This is accomplished by creating an environment that is developmentally appropriate for the children in their classroom.  Teachers present activities in a way that allows children to best learn. 

The Town & Country curriculum is based on the following guidelines:

Classroom Learning Centers - Classrooms of appropriate age children may have the following areas of focus: Art, writing, computers, quiet library area, music, science, sensory table, floor/block play, table toys/manipulative tools and dramatic play. These centers are set up to allow the child access to areas of interest that provide a stimulating, fun, educational experience.

Children’s Literature - Children's literature is promoted through books that each classroom may focus their learning activities on for their Lesson Plans.

NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children)
The NAEYC Academy for Early Childhood Program Accreditation administers a national, voluntary accreditation system to help raise the quality of all types of preschools, kindergartens, and child care centers. Since the system began in 1985, NAEYC Accreditation has provided a powerful tool through which early childhood professionals, families, and others concerned about the quality of early childhood education can evaluate programs, compare them with professional standards, strengthen the program and commit to ongoing evaluation and improvement.

MSRP (Middletown School Readiness Program)
The Departments of Education and Social Services have been implementing the Connecticut School Readiness and Child Day Care Grant Program since 1997. The program is an initiative that was designed to increase the supply of affordable, high-quality preschool programs and expand and enhance access to preschool and child day-care programs in high-poverty areas. Since its inception in 1997, this legislative effort continues to allow 3- to 4-year-old children in 47 qualifying school districts to participate in a high-quality preschool and child-care experience. Children receive a high-quality preschool experience that includes quality components such as education and outreach, collaboration with community services, parent involvement and referrals for health services, including immunizations and screenings. Additional components are nutrition services, family literacy, transition planning for kindergarten, and professional development for staff members.

Developmentally Appropriate Practice
The editors of Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs - Revised Edition relied on research regarding how children learn as well as beliefs about what practices are most supportive and respectful of children's healthy development. The materials in the book help teachers make informed decisions about educating young children. It provides sketches of characteristics and widely held expectations for children's development in four domains: gross motor development, fine motor development, language and communication development, and social and emotional development. Charts that give examples of contrasting appropriate and inappropriate practices are provided to encourage teachers to reflect on their own teaching strategies.

The Creative Curriculum
For young children, meaningful and long-lasting learning requires active thinking and experimenting to find out how things work. This is best accomplished through purposeful play facilitated by highly intentional teaching practices. The Creative Curriculum’s comprehensive approaches to curriculum are based on an understanding of the complex social/emotional, physical, and cognitive development of young children and the way children learn. A comprehensive curriculum provides guidance on the many factors that lead to a high-quality program and presents all aspects of teaching young children effectively. This thorough guidance contrasts with approaches that give teachers a rigid script to follow.

The comprehensive, research-validated, integrated curricula provide everything programs need to achieve positive, consistent outcomes for children. They address teachers' need to know what to teach and why, and how children learn best. Teachers respond to the individual needs and learning styles of all of their children. Built from the ground up to be inclusive, The Creative Curriculum is widely used in special education and inclusive classrooms nationwide.

The curriculum rest on a foundation of more than 75 years of scientific research about child development and learning theory that leads to specific instructional strategies based on how young children learn best. The Creative Curriculum takes what has been learned from theorists such as Erik Erikson, Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, and Howard Gardner, as well as recent research studies about language, literacy, and math development and clearly and simply explains how to apply this information in a classroom.

The curriculum model is practical, logical, and meaningful to teachers. The books translate theory into daily practice by presenting material with structure that makes sense.

The Connecticut Preschool Curriculum Framework
The Connecticut Preschool Curriculum Framework articulates what children should know and be able to do as a result of a high quality preschool experience.  The learning outcomes in this framework are recognized nationally as comprehensive and consistent with research in child development and early childhood education.  The areas or domains addressed are:

Further, these learning outcomes are aligned with the Connecticut Framework for Kindergarten to Grade 12 Curricular Goals and Standards and represent precursor skills in language, pre-literacy and mathematics for success on the Grade 4 CT Mastery Test.

The companion Preschool Assessment Framework allows teachers to monitor children’s progress over time on performance standards.  Teachers need to be able to:

Additionally, programs and schools can use the assessment information to determine specific areas of improvement necessary to increase learning outcomes, such as professional development, resources, materials and equipment.