Curriculum at Bank Street Head Start incorporates both Bank Street College≠s philosophy of education and Head Start Positive Child Outcomes Framework. It is based largely on the activities of daily living. When we talk of our curriculum, we are referring to the environment, people and routines, as well as specific activities. Bank Street's developmental-interaction approach to education stresses the importance of materials in the classroom presents the role of the teachers in the classrooms as facilitators of learning. All teachers bring their own expertise and interests into their classrooms; their practice reflects Bank Street Head Start's philosophy.
Bank Street Head Start's curriculum:
Every day children at Bank Street Head Start are encouraged to explore a variety of activities and places. We support children's curiosity by the materials that we offer in the classroom. Allowing children to choose from a variety of materials helps to stimulate their flexibility, imagination, and inventiveness. All of which, engage children in their own learning process of planning and carrying it out, reasoning and problem- solving, and interacting with others.
Social- Emotional Development
The curriculum at Bank Street Head Start focuses on making connections between home and school and includes the experience of separations from home and family. Children learn to build trusting relationships with others and how to be a part of a group. Children also begin to understand how they are different from, and similar to, others. Learning about their community is also an important aspect of social- emotional development; therefore they take trips to other classrooms and offices within Bank Street Head Start and local stores and parks.
Throughout the year, preschoolers continue to build upon the experiences they have already had in their classrooms, by learning about different families and ways families live and work. They study neighborhood stores and other local sites by using maps, talking neighborhood walks and talking to people in their neighborhood. They also learn how to ask for help when they need it, as well as building new relationships with teachers and peers.
Art activities are geared to individual children's needs and skills. A very young child experiencing paint for the first time may need only one color or may use water on a blackboard. Because this is their first experience with such materials, the children need various surfaces and implements in which to experiment with spreading and smearing. Older children are exposed to an increasing variety of colors, surfaces, and techniques. Few restrictions are placed on the children's explorations with art materials. While they are not allowed to destroy materials (e.g. paint in books or on the floor) they are free to experiment in order to increase their understanding of the medium.
The materials are the motivation - how teachers organize materials and sequence experiences is of primary importance. Repeated exposure to basic materials of painting, clay and collage lead to the ability to use different art media and materials in a variety of ways for creative expression and representation.
Literacy and Language development at Bank Street Head Start builds on the social and cognitive skills of speaking and listening that young children have already acquired. Children are encouraged to express themselves their ideas, feelings and experiences and to engage in a dialogue and discussion.
Our curriculum revolves around the following goals:
A variety of age-appropriate techniques and activities are used to accomplish these goals, including, but not limited to the following: recording stories that children dictate, creative dramatics, making group and individual books, reading and discussion of the daily chart, writing signs, writing simple stories using invented spelling.
Mathematics at Bank Street Head Start is embedded in daily experiences and the core curriculum. Concrete and active experiences in math provide children with a solid foundation from which, at an older age, they can build an understanding of abstract mathematical ideas. Preschoolers work with many different kinds of mathematical materials, including unit blocks, pegs, pegboards, pattern blocks, unifix cubes, dice and wood working materials.
Teachers plan daily activities that support young children's exploration and discovery of the following basic mathematical concepts:
Preschoolers learn about one-to-one correspondence as they set the table for snack or when they place a large animal on a double unit block and a smaller one on a single unit. They count the eggs needed for a recipe, or the number of children participating in an activity. Children measure their heights on long strips of paper and learn about volume as they pour different amounts of water and sand from and to containers of many sizes. They learn to sort and classify according to size, shape or colors as they find, use and put back the various materials that they use in their play. They make simple patterns as they work with pegs, blocks, colored cubes and art materials for painting, collage and printing.
Preschoolers learn how to express mathematical data graphically by measuring their bodies with unifix cubes and recording the results on simple graphs. Different objects in the room are used to compare, measure and record the length and width. Children also measure whole and fractional quantities of ingredients during cooking projects.
Sorting and classifying are related in ongoing mathematical activities. Children use more than one variable (i.e. size, shape and color) to create increasingly complex patterns and designs with different kinds of blocks and construction materials using wood making materials.
The concept of time is built upon from their prior experiences with routines and structure of the day. Children will also begin to learn about the days of the week and the weekend.
The Science curriculum like others at Bank Street Head Start is designed so that children can make sense of the world around them. In addition, topics/ themes are chosen by observing children; in this way, children can see the relevance of science to their own lives. As with the other curriculum domains, there is not a "science" hour, it is integrated into everything children do during their school day.
Our approach emphasizes children≠s process and builds upon their own experiences. They are regularly engaged in collaborative, experimental and problem-solving activities. Scientific thinking and questioning is encouraged, as they become scientific investigators of their world. Children are actively involved in formulating hypotheses, designing experiments, collecting and organizing data and drawing their own conclusions. Teachers encourage children to develop an attitude of respect for nature and their surrounding environment. Children record, order, categorize, generalize, discuss and make predictions based on their observations of the natural environment and natural materials. They also explore transformation, cause-and-effect relationships and the relationship between functions.
All children need opportunities to move and use their bodies. Young children do so constantly as they experiment with what their bodies can do and where their bodies will fit. Just children like to manipulate toys, they enjoy putting their bodies in, on, under, over, through, behind and around. Opportunities for such movement are provided at group times inside and outside of the classrooms. Many activities emerge from songs, including rhythmic games with bodies, playing and singing games and listening activities. Children also have the opportunity to explore sounds and rhythms with drums, tambourines, xylophones, maracas and other non-pitched musical instruments.