The Infant and Toddler classrooms at the Step By Step programs have curriculums individualized to meet every chld's needs. Our teachers use developmental skill checklists based on the Hawaii Early Learning Profile to monitor cognitive, language, motor and social development for every baby. Every baby has a set of monthly goals in each area which is shared with parents. Multisensory individual and group activities are then planned to address each child's goals with ideas given to parents of activities they can do at home to help their baby learn and grow. Infants attending our programs also have individual schedules for eating and sleeping based on parent requests and best practices. Daily written reports keep parents well informed of what their baby has done during the day.
TWO YEAR OLDS
All of the two year old children enrolled at Step By Step benefit from a combination of our theme based Step By Step Curriculum and individual assessments. Our two year old curriculum is based on cognitive, language, motor, self-help and social skills that are developmentally appropriate for two year old children. Activities designed to promote these skills are combined in fun themes. All children enrolled in our two year old classrooms have monthly skill checks done by their teachers. The teachers add activities to the curriculum to help each child develop to their maximum potential.
PRE-K
The Step By Step Pre-K classrooms provide a multisensory preschool curriculum designed to give every child in our program a solid base for their school years ahead. Lesson plans include activities, stories, language pictures, games, songs, learning centers, art projects,dramatic play, recipes and much more. Teachers complete quarterly assessments of each child's development and engage children with developmentally appropriate and fun activities designed to teach the alphabet, shapes, numbers, colors and many other skills. Children in our ISBE Pre-K programs have the benefit of a half-day program with a certified Early Childhood teacher. These teachers will provide an additional program for your child that meets and exceeds ISBE guidelines including home visits and quarterly parent teacher conferences. Our Pre-K programs in Alton and Bethalto are conducted in partnership with Head Start, providing the many benefits of Head Start to eligible families.
A sample of our weekly lesson plans
CLICK ON THE ICONS BELOW FOR SOME SAMPLES FROM OUR PRE-K CURRICULUM
Our Latchkey programs provide much more than just a place to go after school. Children are engaged with art, science, dramatic play, games and literacy activities. After a busy day at school we want to make sure the children have plenty of opportunities to play and relax so activities are designed to be fun learning activities. The themes are determined by the interests of the children and are adapted to the ages of the children in the groups. All children have the opportunity to work on their homework with the help of staff whenever needed.
