North Queen Anne Childcare is a play-based learning center providing developmentally appropriate care and education for children one through five years of age by:

 

• Emphasizing positive, responsive interactions between teachers and children

 

• Curating a classroom environment and daily routine that grows and changes with children and supports positive identity-building and emotional regulation while providing a host of opportunities for independent and facilitated exploration and play

 

• Prioritizing collaboration with families and the wider community to ensure education is reflective and supportive of the many kinds of diversity within the classroom and the individual needs of each child

 

• Centering children and making learning relevant to each child by building curriculum around their interests and skills and offering many opportunities for them to make choices, develop and share ideas, and express themselves 

 

• Making skill and concept learning multimodal and integrating learning and practice opportunities into many parts of each day and week

 

• Scaffolding as needed and providing appropriate levels of challenge to ensure each child’s individual learning needs are met

 

• Collaborating with families and specialists to provide more intensive in-classroom support for children with complex needs

 

In NQACC classrooms, teaching teams use the Project Approach, a methodology in which teachers identify topics of high interest for students and facilitate opportunities for students to engage in firsthand research around these topics in order to support children’s curiosity, dispositions for learning, and critical thinking and research skills. Teams receive support from NQACC’s instructional coach, director, and assistant director in adapting the Project Approach to each classroom’s age range and the needs of its individual students. They also take guidance from important documents establishing learning objectives and skill progressions for young children in the state of Washington such as the Early Learning and Development Guidelines and the Learning Pathways documents for Literacy, Numeracy, and Social-Emotional Learning. Finally, teaching teams use ongoing assessment practices and developmental screening results to ensure they are responding to each child’s individual needs in crafting learning opportunities. All classrooms offer weekly learning opportunities in the following areas:

 

• Creativity and Other People’s Art

• Language and Literacy

• Movement

• Music

• Numeracy

• Our Community and World

• Science, Nature, and Sensory Exploration

• Social-Emotional Learning