At the center we use The Creative Curriculum®, a research-based program as a framework for our educational programing. The curriculum supports the development of the whole child. Creative Curriculum focuses on: Developing confidence and creativity to help students use their critical thinking skills. Offering a variety of studies for students to investigate exploration and discovery as a way of learning. Showing growth in six areas of development when used as an assessment tool and is linked directly to our GOLD Assessment.
Creative Curriculum for Infants, Toddlers & Twos® helps provide high-quality programing with a rich collection of Daily Resources that help teachers put knowledge into practice and help them foster children’s learning and growth at their earliest years.
The Creative Curriculum for Preschool® is proven to increase kindergarten readiness, academically rigorous and promotes social-emotional development, rated higher than any other preschool curriculum, inclusive, supporting all children, and aligned to all state early learning guidelines.
Here are a few of the studies we have at the center:
Beginning of the Year Study-6 weeks
Tree Study-6 weeks
Clothes Study-7 weeks
Balls Study-5 weeks
Buildings-5 weeks
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle-5 weeks
Gardening Study-6 weeks
Pets Study-6 weeks
Exercise Study-6 weeks
Roads Study-6 weeks
Music Making Study-6 weeks
Boxes Study-6 weeks
For more information see the website below: https://teachingstrategies.com
Classrooms utilize the GOLD assessment to evaluate the children’s progress of development in the areas of Social-Emotional; Physical; Language; Cognitive; Literacy; Mathematics; Science and Technology; Social Studies; The Arts; and English Language Acquisition. This ongoing assessment tool will also be used to help plan learning activities based on the developmental needs of the children. Each child’s progress will be reported to their parents or guardians in the fall semester and spring semester at Parent/Teacher conferences.
The GOLD assessment directly correlates to our Creative Curriculum® at The Plambeck Center. As lessons are planned the assessment fits right into the learning naturally. Documentation is collected through student observation, sample, and sometimes parent report. The students are assessed from Birth to age 6. The assessment is a helpful tool for Kindergarten teachers to know the developmental and academic level of their incoming students.
For more information, click on the link below: https://teachingstrategies.com/solutions/assess/gold/
Second Step is a universal, classroom-based social-emotional learning (SEL) curriculum designed to increase kids' school success, promote social-emotional competence and self-regulation, and decrease problem behavior. This curriculum promotes early learning in the classroom, school readiness, and social / life success by directly teaching students the skills to learn, be empathetic, manage emotions, make friends, and solve problems. These skills are taught through puppet scripts, real life pictures, games, and songs. The second step skills language is incorporated throughout the Early Childhood Education Center expectations for students in all classrooms. These skills are taught to the developmental level of each student. Some themes may be more directly correlated to older learners yet can be taught through “exposure” to our younger learners. The curriculum consists of 5 Learning Units and is a 28-week program.
Week 1: Welcoming
Week 2: Listening
Week 3: Focusing Attention
Week 4: Self-Talk
Week 5: Following Directions
Week 6: Asking for What You Need or Want
Week 7: Identifying Feelings
Week 8: More Feelings
Week 9: Identifying Anger
Week 10: Same or Different Feelings
Week 11: Accidents
Week 12: Caring and Helping
Week 13: We Feel Feelings in Our Bodies
Week 14: Strong Feelings
Week 15: Naming Feelings
Week 16: Managing Disappointment
Week 17: Managing Anger
Week 18: Managing Waiting
Week 19: Fair Ways to Play
Week 20: Having Fun With Friends
Week 21: Inviting to Play
Week 22: Joining in Play
Week 23: Saying the Problem
Week 24: Thinking of Solutions
Week 25: Speaking Up Assertively
Week 26: Learning in Kindergarten
Week 27: Riding the Kindergarten Bus
Week 28: Making New Friends in Kindergarten
For more information please see the website below: https://www.secondstep.org/
The Center will incorporate social skill development strategies designed by the Pyramid Model. The Pyramid model is a framework for promoting social emotional development in infants and young children through the use of positive behavior supports. This model provides support for children learning social competence and addresses challenging behaviors that may occur in the classroom.
At the Center we teach the students how to recognize and regulate their emotions through the use of social stories and hands-on manipulatives. Students learn about “Tucker Turtle”; a turtle who gets angry and then tucks in his shell and takes three deep breaths. When he comes out of his shell, he is calm and can “think of a solution” using our solution kit. We also utilize our Problem Solver Story that helps teach students how they can be a problem solver and the steps to take. Super Friend is another social story that show students what a Super Friend does and why it is important to be a Super Friend.
For more information check out the links below:
https://www.pyramidmodel.org/
https://challengingbehavior.cbcs.usf.edu/
Some common strategies used are:
Tucker Turtle Social Story about managing Anger https://challengingbehavior.cbcs.usf.edu/docs/TuckerTurtle_Story_Home.pdf
Classroom Solution Kit
https://challengingbehavior.cbcs.usf.edu/docs/SocialEmotionalSkills_solution-kit_cue-cards.pdf
We Can Be Problem Solvers Social Story about solving problems https://challengingbehavior.cbcs.usf.edu/docs/ProblemSolving_Story.pdf
Super Friend Social Story about being a Super Friend
ScriptedStory_super-friend (1).pptx
The Plambeck Early Childhood Education Center uses The Early Learning Guidelines: Nebraska’s Birth to Five Learning and Development Standards. These guidelines are based on research and evidence about child development and practices that result in the best outcomes for young children. The document provides information related to seven domains or areas of learning and development: Social & Emotional Development, Approaches to Learning, Health & Physical Development, Language & Literacy Development, Mathematics, Science and Creative Arts.
For more information check out the link below: https://www.education.ne.gov/oec/early-learning-guidelines/
The Get Set for School program has so many child-friendly, developmentally appropriate materials and activities. Children play, build, sing, color, and learn while developing important skills for Kindergarten.
The program focuses on the child’s development and how their body learns to write. Children first write using large motor movements, uppercase or straight-line formations. They then learn to fine tune their writing into smaller motor movements; lowercase letters, curved and slant lines. Once students master these prewriting strokes, they move into writing letters, names, and eventually words and sentences. We work on these skills in many hands-on ways before moving onto paper-pencil activities.
Some additional pieces we use with Handwriting Without Tears® are;
- Wood Pieces
- Stamp & See Screens
- Chalkboards
- Flip Crayons
- Songs
