Curriculum

     Our curriculum is inspired by the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education, which encourages young children and their teachers to explore, question, and discover in a stimulating environment.  As early childhood educators, we know children learn best through active, engaged, meaningful play.  Therefore, we firmly believe play is the children’s work. 

   Our Curriculum reflects these needs while fostering independence, empathy, cooperation, and creativity.  In-depth explorations of a topic, which are motivated by the children’s interest, excitement and curiosity, allow the curriculum to be presented in a developmentally appropriate manner.  

Authentic Assessment

    Our goal is to learn about each child and the context of his or her learning. Authentic assessment engages and evaluates children on tasks that are personally meaningful to them, takes place in real life contexts, and is grounded in naturally occurring activities throughout the day. The process of observing, recording, and documenting what children do and how they do it is the basis for a variety of educational decisions that affect our teaching approaches as well as curriculum development and implementation.

    Teachers undertake authentic, meaningful assessment by collecting work samples, checklists, anecdotal notes and photos of the children throughout the year. A child’s portfolio will tell the story of their effort, progress and achievements throughout their time at Mill Creek Early Childhood Program.