Social readiness is the foundation of any successful early education program. While many early childhood education curriculums do a wonderful job of facilitating academic achievement, we feel that our program offers elements of emotional and social education.
At SALMON Centers for Early Education, we provide a loving and healthy environment that nurtures the whole child. Take a look at what we offer.
Infant Program
We strive to provide a nurturing environment for young children that simulates the care of a home by providing open communication between child and parent. Affection and cuddling are built into the daily program as we work to make every infant feel special and loved.
SALMON Centers strive to make sure that your infant’s needs are completely fulfilled. There is one-on-one time between the infant and the caregiver every day to build a sense of trust and safety and to promote the child’s ability to learn with their senses.
To promote a relationship and eliminate any worry the parent may have for their child, SALMON provides a summary every day of the child’s activities down to the details. These include how much food they ate, how long they slept, and whether or not they went outside on a given day. SALMON is committed to offering a nurturing and beneficial program for infants and their parents with loving caregivers and programs that stimulate a child’s sensory education and sense of safety and love.
Toddler Program
The vast number of activities and the education provided in the Toddler Program is designed to focus on encouraging social interaction as well as independence.
Activities include working with the child on personal skills such as dressing themselves, toilet training, and using utensils on their own. We also try to build a foundation of respect for themselves and others as we encourage them to pick up after themselves.
To promote social activity and group learning, we bring the children together at meal times and for group activities and set up the classroom such that they can work to playing independently or with one another.
The physical activities provided focus on muscle coordination, both small and large, and can take place both indoors and outdoors. Outside, the children and their caregivers will take frequent walks and play with playground equipment. Inside activities include painting, solving puzzles, taking part in plays, and making or dancing to music. We provide these toddlers with ample opportunity to exercise both their mind and their bodies. We also ensure that the child not only continues to receive love and affection from our caregivers but that they begin to learn independence and build their self-esteem.
Preschool Program
In the Preschool program, we introduce structure to the children with a morning of stories, songs, art, and more. To instill a sense of responsibility, we also begin assigning each child jobs to perform such as holding the door or leading the line.
The children are given numerous means to express themselves from art to music as well as various ways to collaborate with other children and play in groups. We focus greatly on the social interaction of our preschoolers as well as individuality as we try to bring out acceptance and confidence in everyone. SALMON centers emphasize the proper use of words to boost social interaction, at the same time encouraging the children’s individual personalities.
This program is an excellent introduction into the world of education and schooling that SALMON is happy to offer and be a part of.
Pre-K Program
For children 4 to 6, SALMON offers a Pre-K program on our Natick campus that focuses on a vast number of skills through a wide variety of activities designed to help the children excel. By introducing a balance of the intellectual, social, emotional, and physical, we hope to better prepare each child for schooling in each of our education areas. These areas offered through our activities include science, music, art, language, early reading, and numbers that are designed to promote each child’s individual growth.
As with all of SALMON’s programs, the Pre-K program is designed to build a child’s self-esteem, as well as a positive attitude towards learning by allowing a measure of choice in the activities. They have the opportunity to choose from the areas they would like to participate in and are given ample opportunity to improve their social skills including negotiating and group problem-solving.
The Pre-K program continues to promote all language skills including reading and writing through activities that include letter and word recognition, phonetic awareness, reading comprehension, and more.
Collaboration Between Different Generations
At the SALMON Centers for Early Education, we offer an environment that uses carefully planned intergenerational activities to help each child reach his or her potential.
Intergenerational programming that brings out the best in both our volunteers and our students is a product of experience and research.
Our loving and supportive environment includes positive interaction with older adults that become mentors, leaders and trusted friends to our students. We want students to be excited about learning, and our innovative teaching methods and groundbreaking curriculum support that mission completely.
One-on-One Attention
Intergenerational activities offer the kind of one-on-one attention that young children crave. This type of interaction is crucial to their overall social development as children get the chance to practice communication skills and relationship building and feel that they are truly cared for.
Increased Ability to Cope With Differences
Children who spend time with people of different ages and abilities tolerate those differences much better than children who haven’t had the opportunity to interact with wide varieties of people.
This kind of interaction creates a sensitivity to people with disabilities and facilitates positive attitudes about aging.
Higher Levels of Personal Maturity
Intergenerational programming gives children role models who show them how to behave. Their mentors provide a lifetime of experience and patience that helps children form a solid concept of how to conduct themselves in day-to-day life.
Better Academic Performance
Children are natural learners. Exposing them to older people who are genuinely interested in answering their questions, sparking their curiosity, and spending quality time with them creates a sense of pride in their work and academic achievement that is hard to replicate in any other situation.
Our curriculum facilitates group and individual work as it promotes each child’s individual ability to learn at their own pace while remaining challenged.
Intergenerational Programming in Schools Adds Value to the Child’s Educational Experience
According to a study conducted by Generations United, children experienced a faster rise in reading scores when their school allowed older volunteers to spend 15 hours per week working with the students.
Generations United educates the public about the benefits of intergenerational programming. They have conducted many scientific studies in an effort to learn about the effects of integrating older people into educational settings in order to help young children.
Through this type of program, children interact with positive role models and develop a sense of trust, stronger volunteering habits and better attitudes about being involved in the community.
According to Making a Difference: An Impact Study of Big Brothers Big Sisters conducted in Philadelphia, students involved with an intergenerational educational program are 52 percent less likely to skip school and 46 percent less likely to use illegal drugs.
They also note that children involved with intergenerational programming at their schools have a greater ability to handle delayed gratification and a larger overall sensitivity to people with disabilities.
A Strong Foundation for Later Learning
The warmth and dedication of our staff of expert educators at the SALMON Centers for Early Education shines through in our students’ success.
Early experiences should be rich, vibrant and full of interaction. Children have constant opportunities to touch, discover, experiment and manipulate the things that make learning fun at our innovative education centers.
Our center directors have many years of experience, a wealth of knowledge and the expertise needed to help students successfully transition to kindergarten.
Emotional and social readiness is a determining factor in academic success later in life. A quality early childhood education program offers the foundation needed for each child to reach their full potential as a student, citizen, family member and friend.
For more information about how your child can benefit from the unique and inspiring curriculum as well as the intergenerational activities at our early education facilities in Northbridge and Natick, please contact us.
