Rawrrrr! Apatosaurus, Triceartops, Tyrannosaurus and more!

Have you heard of the Dinosaur School Curriculum?  This is a program created by the Incredible Years that we use in our preschool and kindergarten classrooms 2-3 times per week.

The Incredible Years Dinosaur Social Skills and Problem-Solving Curriculum©  is a comprehensive video and theme-based curriculum that is based on social skills, emotional regulation and problem-solving.  The main goals are:

• Positive social skills

• Conflict and anger management skills

• Emotional literacy

• Appropriate school behaviours

• Reading, writing and communication skills

• Positive self-esteem

The program consists of seven units with their own dinosaur themes:

Apatosaurus Unit 1: Learning School and Home Rules

Iguanodon Unit 2: How to Do Your Best in School

Triceratops Unit 3: Understanding and Detecting Feelings

Stegosaurus Unit 4: Problem-Solving Training

Tyrannosaurus Rex Unit 5: Anger Management

Allosaurus Unit 6: How to Be Friendly

Brachiosaurus Unit 7: How to Talk With Friends

The Dinosaur School is an amazing way for us to teach these important skills, but in a way that is incredibly fun for our students.  All aspects of the curriculum focus on:

• Using a child-centered, relationship-building teaching philosophy

• Integrating research-based principles of learning

• Valuing the developmental stages and abilities of children (ages 3 to 8 years) as well as acknowledging individual differences in temperament and learning styles

• Opportunities for encouraging cultural diversity

• Regular involvement with parents in all aspects of the curriculum and learning process

• Utilizing learning approaches based on children’s active experiences with peers and materials

• Integrating academic competencies (i.e., reading, writing, math, oral language) with social and emotional competencies

• Activities that encourage children’s choices and self-direction in learning

• Respect for children’s and parents’ input and inclusion of adaptable materials to address themes meaningful to children within a particular classroom and community

• Multiple opportunities designed to encourage language, literacy and writing development

• Strengthening children’s emotional regulation and problem-solving

We will be opening a new toddler program at our Big Bay Point location on January 12. Contact us for more information on the program or information about our Dinosaur School Curriculum.  

About Discovery Child Care

Barrie Based Discovery Child Care brings nature into the classroom and takes the classroom into nature, offering an environmentally aware foundation of early learning for children, from infants to school-age. We follow an Emergent Curriculum philosophy which means, your child will be provided with hands-on, play-based learning opportunities that will encourage active exploration, autonomy, choice, problem solving and plain old fun! Your child’s individual interests, abilities and needs will be considered when planning our indoor and outdoor programs. For more information, visit http://www.discoverychid.on.ca

Its Snow Time | 11 Family Activities for a Flurry of Fun

It’s a winter wonderland.  Or at least it will be!  Our first snowfall has already melted away, but we all know that won’t last too long.

Your kids are all set with their own snowsuits, snow mittens and boots – but are you? Invest in your own snow gear and take advantage of these 11 family snow activities that will encourage learning through play, during the most wonderful time of year.  

1. Go Tobogganing.  There’s nothing more fun than this classic winter activity!  Find a safe hill and head out as a family.  This is a great learning opportunity – make sure your children are aware of their surroundings and know how to stay safe.  Once the safety rules are clear, you can encourage exploration.
 
2.  Build a Snowman.  How can you make this classic activity more fun?  Search for different sticks or other nature-based items to dress up your snowman.  You can even incorporate old clothing or food colouring.  

3.  Colour the Snow.  Create colourful sprays using food colouring and water.  Then let imaginations go wild!  Your children will love spraying different colours all over the snow’s blank canvas, leaving trails and “artwork” everywhere.  Our Forest School children loved this activity – see how much fun they had here.

4.  Make a Snow Angel.  Create your own angels and try exploring different depths of snow.  Laying in the snow will also allow your children to explore a new perspective – encourage them to describe what they see.

5.  Make a Snow Sculpture.  Encourage your children to create their own snow masterpiece.  Use hands, shovels, spoons – or any other tools you can think of!  

6.  Build an Igloo.  Explore different shapes as you build your snow blocks, or consider creating a family igloo project that incorporates ice and colour.  Did you see this igloo last year?  What an amazing family project.

7.  Have a Winter Picnic.  Hot chocolate is the perfect addition to any winter activity, so why not plan a fun outdoor picnic?  Check fire regulations to see if you can incorporate a toasty winter campfire.

8.  Go on a Winter Hike.  Take a walk through the forest and explore the seasonal changes. And don’t forget to keep an eye out for animal tracks.

9.  Set Up a Scavenger Hunt.  In your backyard or during your forest walk, you can create an exciting scavenger hunt to find nature-based items such as pine cones or sticks.  Consider incorporating colours, letters and numbers into your hunt.

10.  Check Out Holiday Lights.  You can walk around your neighbourhood or look for municipal light displays like the Barrie Festival of Trees display at Centennial Park.

11.  Do A Good Deed.  Consider shoveling your neighbour’s driveway as a family.  Whether they are on vacation or have difficulties shoveling it themselves, your neighbour will be incredibly grateful and you will be passing along a valuable lesson.

Enjoy your family fun - let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

About Discovery Child Care

Barrie Based Discovery Child Care brings nature into the classroom and takes the classroom into nature, offering an environmentally aware foundation of early learning for children, from infants to school-age. We follow an Emergent Curriculum philosophy which means, your child will be provided with hands-on, play-based learning opportunities that will encourage active exploration, autonomy, choice, problem solving and plain old fun! Your child’s individual interests, abilities and needs will be considered when planning our indoor and outdoor programs. For more information, visit http://www.discoverychid.on.ca

Our First Weeks of Forest School At Discovery Child Care

Our forest explorers have had a busy few weeks since the opening of our brand new Discovery Forest School.

Our daily walkabouts through the forest have shown us everything from animal habitats and fallen trees, to muddy rainwater and changing leaves. The opportunities for learning have been endless!

Every day we begin with circle time to discuss safety, exploration and sing our good morning song.

"Good morning dear earth, good morning dear sun, good morning dear trees and the flowers everyone, good morning dear bees and the birds in the trees, good morning to you and good morning to me."

From there, we plan different activities and let imaginations run wild. Each of our lessons incorporate respect for nature and all things big or small. In September, we planned scavenger hunts, practiced rope tying, talked about animal homes, and explored weather changes in the forest.

Shapes and Colours Everywhere

The forest was the perfect backdrop for discovering shapes and colours. Flowers, rocks, bugs, caterpillars. Some many colours and shapes to discuss! And we also brought our big triangle bell and baked rectangle cupcakes.

Texture and Patterns

Squishy, hard, rough and smooth. The children explored difference textures during their walkabouts. Rain created the opportunity to splash and squish mud while discussing snow melts and streams. The children were also able to create works of art by rubbing crayons on paper over different textures found in the forest, like bark or moss. Each work of art had its own unique pattern.

Imagination Reigns

Giddy-up! Our rope tying activity turned into an imaginative game, where the children rode their "horses" around trees and over logs. We also practiced tying knots in ropes around trees, while some children created swings and hung tarps.

A New Perspective

Near or far. Up high or down low. The children noticed that fallen trees provide a home to lots of different types of bugs. And high up in the sky, we could see trees sway in the wind, even though we couldn't feel the wind down on the ground.   The children also played with magnifying glasses and kaleidoscopes to gain a new perspective in the forest.

Here are some of the books we read during our adventures:

The Giving Tree, Shel Silverstein
We’re Going on A Nature Hunt, Steve Metzger
Munch, Munch Crunch, Bugs for Lunch, Gwen Petreman
The Tree, Dana Lyons
A is for Autumn, Robert Maas
Under Ground, Denise Fleming

What a great start for our Forest Discovery School. We can’t wait to continue our journey in nature.

About Discovery Child Care
Barrie Based Discovery Child Care brings nature into the classroom and takes the classroom into nature, offering an environmentally aware foundation of early learning for children, from infants to school-age. We follow an Emergent Curriculum philosophy which means, your child will be provided with hands-on, play-based learning opportunities that will encourage active exploration, autonomy, choice, problem solving and plain old fun! Your child’s individual interests, abilities and needs will be considered when planning our indoor and outdoor programs. For more information, visit http://www.discoverychid.on.ca

Discovery Child Care Launches The First Licensed Forest And Nature School In Barrie & Simcoe County

The forest school concept is quickly being adopted around the world offering enormous benefits to young children as they naturally explore the nature around them

BARRIE, Ontario, Canada – 24th September, 2014 - (www.discoverychild.on.ca) Discovery Child Care, an award winning child care centre, focused on connecting children with nature using unique award winning nature-focused programs, has opened its newest initiative, The Discovery Forest School – www.forestschool.ca

Forest School is an educational approach that has existed worldwide since the late 1950s, with over ten thousand Forest School programs in the UK alone. In a Forest School, children spend anywhere from a half day to a full day outdoors in various urban and near-urban parks, natural spaces adjacent to, or on school grounds, or natural playgrounds and outdoor classrooms.

The activities that happen in a Forest School also vary, depending on the season, climate, landscape, animals that have visited the night before, trees that have blown down in the wind, the kinds of provocations elicited by the educator.

Discovery Child Care Centre offers an educational program as an alternative to the Ministry of Education Full Day Kindergarten Program.  As children are not required to attend school until grade one, children have the option to be enrolled full-time in our Kindergarten program.

Our curriculum is child-directed, hands-on, play based, emergent, and inquiry-based.  A growing body of research has emerged that affirms that children ages birth through eight years learn most effectively through this approach to education.

“We’re very excited to bring this new nature program into our child care centre and offer it as a legitimate and licensed alternative to regular kindergarten,” says Karen Eilersen, President of Discovery Child Care and a certified forest school practitioner.  “There are 2 certified teachers (in training) working in our Forest School program. We have a 1 to 4 teacher / child ratio while in the forest, and a 1-8 teacher / child ratio while in the indoor/outdoor classroom.  The Forest School Program (9am-12pm daily) is taught by two Level 3 certified Forest School Practitioners and 2 classroom teachers and we follow the Ontario Early Learning Framework, Continuum of Development so your child is well prepared for grade one.”

Discovery Child Care has already developed it own nature program bringing nature into the classroom and taking the classroom into nature, offering an environmentally aware foundation of early learning for children, from infants to school-age.

“We believe that being outdoors in beautiful, natural environments is an essential experience for all children. Research continues to show that nature reduces stress, increase attention span and foster healthy brain development. It is critical to a child’s health and to the healthy development of the whole child,” added Karen. “Children are given the opportunity to interact daily with materials found in nature and in the process become thoughtful stewards of the earth we share.”

The Discovery Child Care Forest School Program follows the Emergent Curriculum philosophy which means, children will be provided with hands-on, play-based learning opportunities that will encourage active exploration, autonomy, choice, problem solving and plain old fun! A child’s individual interests, abilities and needs will be considered when planning our indoor and outdoor programs.

"We’re very excited for our child to grasp the elements of nature, what an astounding experience!” says Cynthia Nontell. “This program will help our children to have the opportunity for more well rounded education inside and outside of the classroom."


- End -

About Discovery Child Care
Barrie Based Discovery Child Care brings nature into the classroom and takes the classroom into nature, offering an environmentally aware foundation of early learning for children, from infants to school-age. We follow an Emergent Curriculum philosophy which means, your child will be provided with hands-on, play-based learning opportunities that will encourage active exploration, autonomy, choice, problem solving and plain old fun! Your child’s individual interests, abilities and needs will be considered when planning our indoor and outdoor programs. For more information, visit http://www.discoverychid.on.ca

Media / PR Contact:
David Terry
Terry Marketing
Tel: 705-797-2121
Email: david@terrymarketing.com

Discovery Opens First Licensed Forest & Nature School in Simcoe

We're proud to announce a new Kindergarten program at Discovery Child Care. Starting in September 2014 we're opening a Forest & Nature School at our Harvie Road location.

What is a Forest & Nature School? 

Forest School [FS] is an educational approach that has existed worldwide since the late 1950s, with over ten thousand Forest School programs in the UK alone. In FS, children spend anywhere from a half day to a full day outdoors in various urban and near-urban parks, natural spaces adjacent to or on school grounds, or natural playgrounds and outdoor classrooms.   The activities that happen in FS also vary, depending on the season, climate, landscape, animals that have visited the night before, trees that have blown down in the wind, the kinds of provocations elicited by the educator.  Source: Forestschoolcanada.ca 

Discovery Child Care Centre offers an educational program as an alternative to the Ministry of Education Full Day Kindergarten Program.  As children are not required to attend school until grade one, children have the option to be enrolled full time in our Kindergarten program. 

Our curriculum is child-directed, hands-on, play based, emergent, and inquiry-based.  A growing body of research has emerged that affirms that children ages birth through eight years learn most effectively through this approach to education.

There are 4 teachers working in our Forest School program: Lisa Simmons RECE (full time), Michelle Hawksworth (full time) Karen Eilersen & Chelsa Osborne- both RECE & level 3 certified forest school practitioner (part time)

• 1/4 teacher child ratio while in the forest; 1/8 teacher child ratio while in the indoor/outdoor classroom
• Forest School Program  (9am-12pm daily) taught by Level 3 certified Forest School Practitioners
• We follow the Ontario Early Learning Framework, Continuum of Development so your child is well prepared for grade one. 
• Child directed, play-based, emergent & inquiry based learning environment
• Hot Lunch and snacks provided (full day program)
• Longer hours available 7am-6pm (no additional before and after school care required)
• Beautiful outdoor classroom (1.77 acres)
• Organic Gardening & Dinosaur School (Social Skills program), Book Backpack program (Literacy)

Visit our new website to learn more about this exciting program. www.forestschool.ca

Discovery Child Care offers interesting and educational before and after school programs. Call us for a tour. We'd love to meet with you and your child! 705-733-2052

Trip to Landfill Great Learning Opportunity!

Today the School Agers took a break from daily life at the Centre and hopped on the bus to visit our local landfill! Upon arrival, we were excited to learn that we would get to tour the facility on the bus and see all of the different ways that garbage is sorted. We were surprised to see how clean and organised the site was and how many different categories of trash they had there!

 

Very little of what is brought there actually ends up in the landfill. We thought this was wonderful. As we entered, our bus went onto the scale. With our bus driver, 5 teachers and 36 children, the school bus weighed 10710kg!!!! We never would have guessed! (We certainly tried)

We learned that vehicles are weighed while entering and exiting the landfill in order to find out how much garbage they had dropped off.

Inside the Education centre, we learned about sorting our disposables at home and which bins (grey, blue, green or garbage can) different items belonged in. We were very proud that we were already pretty good at this! We also talked about our ecological footprint (which is the affect we have on our planet) and ways we can keep our footprints small such as recycling, conserving energy, composting and reusing items.



Did you know that the education centre building at the landfill is built with reused bricks from a home, glass block/windows from old city hall and has a driveway that was created from the pavement dug up from Ann St when it was repaved? It also has a carpet in it that is made from recycled plastic bottles! How cool is that???



Outside, we enjoyed a scavenger hunt in the breezy fresh air, a relay race though tires to sort “discarded items” and even planted flowers from seed paper into pots made from compostable plant food! In all, it was a very FULL, FUN and INTERESTING morning and were pleasantly surprised to receive gift bags (lunch bags) filled with all kinds of cool recycled items to bring home!

Thank you City of Barrie for this wonderful learning opportunity!




Discovery Child Care offers interesting and educational before and after school programs. Call us for a tour. We'd love to meet with you and your child! 705-733-2052

Our "Kinder Garden" Grows Healthy Food!

One of the great things about having such a wonderful outdoor space at our child care centres is that we can garden with our kids!

Tending a garden from preparation in the spring to harvesting throughout the summer and fall is a fantastic learning opportunity for children and it is SO MUCH Fun!

The garden gives the kindergarten class a hands on chance to learn about vegetables, flowers, insects, soil and how to look after a garden.

This week we had a mini picnic enjoying our kale and lettuce straight from the garden (this has become a regular treat!) We also harvested lots of radishes which Alicia put in the potato salad that everyone enjoyed with lunch. We harvested lots of fennel, kale and herbs for today's soup. We spent some time watering and weeding too.

Our tomatoes, peppers, cucumber, beans, ground

cherries, pumpkins, squash, carrots, zucchini are growing like crazy and we will definitely be harvesting more next week. Please come and visit our garden with your child and have them show you around. The kindergarten class is very proud of their accomplishments!

Nature is a perfect classroom and we integrated it into our school programs as much as possible, through all four seasons. Find out more about our Nature Explore classrooms and contact us to arrange a tour at either our Harvie Road or Big Bay Point location. Discovery Child Care Centre is the first Certified Nature Explore Classroom in Canada!