This is a state approved, “forward-thinking, comprehensive, research-based and research-proven curriculum resources. These help teachers and caregivers to be their most effective, while still honoring their creativity and respecting their critical role in making learning exciting and relevant for every child.
Our supportive curriculum solutions are used by early childhood educators across the country, helping them provide children with developmentally appropriate programs that support active learning and promote progress in all developmental areas.” (https://teachingstrategies.com/solutions/teach/)
“Second Step is a program rooted in social-emotional learning (SEL) that helps transform schools into supportive, successful learning environments uniquely equipped to encourage children to thrive. More than just a classroom curriculum, Second Step’s holistic approach helps create a more empathetic society by providing education professionals, families, and the larger community with tools to enable them to take an active role in the social-emotional growth and safety of today’s children.”(https://www.secondstep.org/what-is-second-step)
Zion has a full kitchen and makes nutritionally sound, great tasting, meals for our kids. We serve breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner, and evening snack. We focus on not only serving well balanced meals, but also teaching children how to make nutritionally sound eating choices.
Our programs use The Creative Curriculum for Infants and Toddlers, which focuses on what is most essential for healthy growth and development: building responsive relationships with children and families. The programs are founded on the principles of developmentally appropriate practice using guidelines developed by NAEYC and Birth to Three. These guidelines enable program staff to make decisions about the well-being and education of young children based on three sources of knowledge:
The curriculum addresses the following criteria under the following categories of developmentally appropriate practice:
Since children do not master a skill all at once, each objective has three steps that illustrate the typical sequence of development. A special category called forerunners looks at emerging behaviors for each objective to assess all children’s learning and development, including those with disabilities or developmental delays. The Developmental Continuum is divided into four areas-social/emotional physical, cognitive and language.
“Our mission is to reduce and prevent childhood obesity by improving access to healthy food and physical activity.” Dr. Jamie Jeffrey was, and continues to be, an invaluable and esteemed partner to Zion CDC. Dr Jeffrey was our first partner to help us with Parent Engagement programs. She helped us with the development of our Natural Learning Environment and with policy and procedures that lead to improved program quality through NAP SACC (Nutritional and Physical Activities Self-Assessment for Childcare Centers); an evidence-based tool that considers the whole child in its approach to health and nutrition. KEYS 4 HealthyKids has helped us introduce locally grown produce to our children and families by helping us with Pop Up Markets and a Gardening Program. It has been instrumental in our efforts to offer you highly trained staff and teachers by providing us with continuous quality improvements for our trainings.
The Creative Curriculum for Preschools is aligned with the West Virginia Early Learning Standards.
For young children, meaningful and long-lasting learning requires active thinking and experimenting to find out how things work. This is the best accomplished through purposeful play facilitated by highly intentional teaching practices. The curriculum provides teachers with guidance in these areas:
Before and After School Programs, Including full time Summer School Aged Attendees
We provide tutoring in math, science, reading and spelling. Communication between parents, tutors, public school day teacher and the child is ongoing to maximize the child’s learning and to ensure each child receives help in areas of needs.
Social Interactions: Learning Centers, Physical Education activities including, organized games, outdoor play, etc.
Group Discussions: Theme related topics, group sharing, program planning, community visitation to center
Music Experiences: Musical activities, freeze dance, instruments, musical games
Learning Experiences: Theme related hands on arts/crafts, math, science, engineering, social studies, cooking and literature activities.
Special Activities: Preplanned group activities, STEM learning, Master Gardeners
Social Interactions: Learning Centers, Organized games, indoor/outdoor gross motor activities, etc.
Zion Child Development Center complies with applicable Federal civil rights laws and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, or sex. ZCD does not exclude people or treat them differently because of race, color, national origin, age, disability, or sex.