Infants Toddlers & Twos

Meet Our Staff Our dedicated staff has had years training with young children. Our teachers are certified with degrees in Early Childhood Development and we also have student teachers currently working towards their A.A.S or A.S. degrees. We want you to feel comfortable leaving your children with our dependable staff. Our teachers hold obervations to watch how the children are growing socially, emotianally, mentally, and physically.

Assessment We, at Infants Toddlers & Twos hold observations on our children to observe how they are developing. Our goal is to have at least four observations on each child. Our staff goes through a training process on how to observe the children in their natural surroundings. Some of our observations are quick and we simply jot them down or we hold more formal observations to see if our children have reached certain milestones. Each child has a file folder holding every one of their observations. Each child is then evaluated at the end of the month to see what their progress and developmental steps they have reached. We also use all of our information from the observations to plan activites for the children based on their developmental level. This process benefits the children and if there are any concerns we do bring them up with the parents. Challenging Behaviors We as teachers understand that children can go through challenging behaviors and that these behaviors may be cries for help. Some of our children may not be able to explain their problems verbally and that is what brings up anger or frustration.These challenging behaviors take place in the form of temper tantrums, physical aggression, ad biting. For physical aggression we take immediate action and assess the situation quickly. We calm the child that has the aggression and try to make the child feel safe. We NEVER use physical punishment on a child. Temper tantrums can be difficult and hard to control but we make sure that the child does not hurt themselves or anyone around them. After the child has calmed down, we take the child into a quiet room and reassure them that we can help them. We also let them know that they can come to us if anything is bothering them. To minimize tantrums, our staff tries to minimize frustration by creating an environment that is frustration free. We give toddlers plenty of opportunities to be competent. We let them help with some decisons. For biting incidents, we respond to the situation quickly. We comfort the child that was biten and dress the wound accordingly. We always document biting incidents and inform parents of these situations.	Promoting Self Regulation Self Regulation is the ability to control one's own feelings and behavior. Young infants need their caregivers to establish and follow rituals. Young infants like to put things in their mouth while they play and explore and our staff is always making sure to keep a close eye on youg infants. They need that extra attention and young infants respong to the stimluation of their caregivers face, voice, touch, and motion. Mobile infants want to explore everything they can and at this age, limits need to be set for them. We use clear and simple language to communicate to the infants which behaviors are acceptable. We rarely use the word "no." We keep a great flow throughout the day and we don't make our infants wait around for the teachers to begin the next activity. We make sure to put the children first and look at situations from their perspective before we immediately step in. Toddlers are gaining a sense of independence and we as teachers encourage them to participate in daily activites.Sharing is not a favorite thing among toddlers and we understand that. Our staff is prepared for an situation but we always share our feelings on how we would like a toddler to handle a situation. We always give toddlers alternate ways of expressing their feelings and give them a lot of opportunities to say no. We have familiar routines in each classroom and each child knows a sign to use when it is time to move on to a new routine. If a challenging situation does arise, our staff is flagged to not talk about the situation in front of children. We understand that advice is needed from time to time but we don't want to make any children uncomfortable. We believe in giving our children choices to avoid a lot of negative behaviors. We also try to redirect their behavior to get children away from an unnacceptable behavior	Building Relationships Our staff is dedicated to building positive and meaningful relationships with the each of the children. We make sure to greet each child with a gleeful attitude. We ask the staff to not bring negative attitudes or problems into the workplace because it can rub off on the children and make a negative atmosphere. We make sure to respond to a child that is crying quickly. We want the children to know that they can depend on their caregiver. We want them to know they can build trust on us. Our staff always makes sure to use caring words and let children know they are respected and valued. We make sure to hold small group activites daily so children can get indivdualized time with caregivers and classmates. One of ours goals is to mentor and show the children that if we model and treat them with respect that they will promote their postive attitudes with others. We also try our hardest to make sure that we are acknowledging every child's positive interatcions. We encourage each child to work and help each other. We have one month out of every school year that is dedicated to friendship. Teacher-Child ratios are very important to us and we follow the guildelines very seriously. Guidance Infants and Toddlers are very curious and like to test their limits with their caregivers.Our job atInfants Toddlers & Twos is to help guide each child through a childhood of excitement, independence and gain competence through exploration and discovery. Children learn through play and we encrouage all types of play for them. Their play is filled with many opportunities for them to develop new skills and learn from their peers. We make sure to verbalize with the children as they are playing the many activities throughout the day. It helps them build confidence and also helps them build a vocabulary. We follow the Developmental Continuum closely to monitor children's growth and if they could step up in their developmental playing. We make sure to have activities that are familiar to the children but also have a slight change so they are learning new concepts. We make sure to include all children in the learning process and any child that needs special attention is taken into consideration. We have staff on hand that can work with multi-lingual children and also children with disabilities.