Infant Daycare and Todder Daycare in Columbus, Delaware, and Sunbury, Ohio
If you are searching for educational preschools that provide infant daycare or toddler daycare in Columbus, Sunbury, or Delaware, Ohio look no further than Little Buckeye Learning Center. Our first priority is to provide your baby with excellent physical care and attention to their needs. However, our teachers provide so much more than that.
Infants and Toddlers are Ready to Learn
At Little Buckeye, we are excited by the fact that learning can take place at any age! Infants and toddlers are primed and ready to learn everything they can about their world. Researchers know that children learn an incredible amount as infants and toddlers. We are prepared to nourish that growth in a loving, welcoming, and dynamic environment.
Specially Designed Programs for Infants & Toddlers
Our educators develop specially designed programs just for infants and toddlers. From social and emotional growth to cognition, literacy, and language development, our teachers provide a rich and stimulating curriculum designed specifically to foster the rich learning of very young children. Our curriculum, the award-winning, research based Learning Beyond Paper, is also specially designed to engage your child in meaningful, individualized experiences tailored to your child’s personal learning and development.
Providing a Safe and Loving Environment
Recognizing that growth occurs best in a safe and loving environment, our educators receive rigorous training and continuing education. Little Buckeye’s commitment to the Ohio Step Up To Quality program and the additional training it requires, ensures that you will experience the highest quality education available.
Infant & Toddler Curriculum
Our Infant and Toddler curriculum and programming follows the whole child philosophy of learning and incorporates the award-winning, research based Learning Beyond Paper. Every area of your child’s development is intertwined and connected with other areas of development. Therefore, we also thoughtfully develop weekly lesson plans that encompass the following five main content areas of the Ohio Early Learning and Development Standards. In addition, Little Buckeye has added a sixth category for our students, Creative Arts.
Social and Emotional Development
To help develop a healthy concept of self, our teachers encourage meaningful relationships in many ways. Here are just a few examples of how our teachers engage with our infants and toddlers to help promote a healthy sense of self as they develop:
- Facilitating attachments with caregivers
- Safe play spaces
- Encouraging the development of empathy and compassion towards others
- Participation in group routines
- Encouraging play among peers
- Talking about feelings
- Encouraging role play
Approaches Toward Learning
As your child learns to explore the world, our teachers encourage independent thinking and exploration. Therefore, lesson plans are designed to be adaptable for each child’s individual style of learning. We encourage curiosity and learning by:
- Encouraging initiative
- Providing assistance with problem solving encountered in exploration and play
- Encouraging children to do things for themselves while providing support to overcome obstacles.
Cognition and General Knowledge
Although it might seem surprising, infants and toddlers are developing math, science and social studies skills as early learners. Our teachers provide programming and activities that promote the development of early cognitive skills that will provide a firm foundation for future learning including:
- Positional words such as “up” or “under”
- Quantitative concepts such as “more”
- How actions can repeat
- Choosing from a group of items
- Providing a sensory rich environment that encourages safe exploration
- Exploring the senses through textures, smells, tastes, sounds, and more
- Exploring object permanence through activities like “peek-a-boo”
- Using our senses for exploration
- Exploring “same” and “different”
- Beginning understanding of cause and effect
- Encouraging the act of taking things apart and putting them back together
- Developing fine motor skills through the use of tools
- Early formulation of “why, what, and how” questions
Language and Literacy Development
Language and literacy development begin early for even the youngest children. From an infant’s coos to a toddler’s beginning words, this early language is how young children explore their world and build relationships. In addition, our teachers provide print rich environments for even our youngest learners to link the spoken and written word and to encourage the progression of verbal skills into beginning literacy. Little Buckeye infant and toddler teachers nourish and encourage this language and literacy development in so many ways. Here are just a few examples:
- Singing lullabies and songs
- Naming objects
- Engaging in conversations
- Exploring and talking about picture books
- Playing rhyming and word games
- Exploration of picture books and magazines
- Listening to the spoken word from developmentally appropriate books
- Learning how to follow short directions
- Beginning use of writing tools and instruments
Physical Well-Being and Motor Development
Healthy habits and routines, at even the youngest ages, build a foundation for lifelong health. Your infant’s health and well-being are fostered daily with age appropriate activities and a safe environment. Infants are provided with safe spaces to sleep, eat, play, and cuddle. As they become more mobile, new and engaging activities are introduced on an individual basis as we adapt our programming to the needs of each child.
As infants develop into toddlers, they love to move! We put this new skill to work in a variety of ways that enhance your child’s entire development, including:
- Moving and dancing to music
- Moving specific parts of the body
- Movement and balance
- Gross motor skills such as walking, dancing, jumping
- Fine motor skills such as drawing or writing
Creative Arts
We immerse your child in rich and diverse experiences that capture their interest, nurture their development, and excite their senses. Our teachers guide children to explore their creative side and to appreciate the beauty of the art world in a developmentally appropriate way by:
- Painting with large brushes, sponges, and fingers
- Using rattles and musical instruments
- Dancing and moving to varied beats, music, and tempos
- Playing with puppets and dolls
- Exploring building and art materials
- Encouraging imitation and pretend
- Exploring and experiencing color
- Sensory exploration using materials like shaving cream, clay, and sponges
- Encouraging pretend play
