Dear Families,
Since 1985, the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) has sponsored a “national voluntary accreditation system to set professional standards for early childhood education programs and to help families find high quality programs.” Over 11,000 programs are currently accredited by NAEYC. UCDC first applied for and received accreditation status in 1995. We continue to meet the highest standards and have maintained accreditation with each re-accreditation process that we’ve undertaken.
Our current accreditation will expire in September 2019. We have begun the process to work on our documentation, portfolios, and best practices. We will be submitting our evidence to the academy and expect our visit from the assessors to come during the six-month window of February and July.
We will be reviewing our practices as they relate to relationships, curriculum, teaching, assessment of child progress, health, staff competencies, preparation, and support, families, community relations, physical environment, leadership and management.
We anticipate that we will be making some changes to our practices and policies and will keep you updated on that process. While we recognize that change is not always an easy or welcomed event, we are anticipating that the changes needed for re-accreditation will be an opportunity to validate the excellent standards we have in place and work towards improvement in other areas. While we begin to embrace this process as a next step in our continued growth, we hope that you will support our work and possible requests, knowing that your children and all children benefit from child care programs that consistently meet the highest of standards.
If you are interested in learning more NAEYC’s Accreditation System, please visit
www.naeyc.org to get more information.
Warmly,
Mary Beth
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Curriculum in the Classroom: Preschool Four
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"
When children pretend, they’re using their imaginations to move beyond the bounds of reality. A stick can be a magic wand. A sock can be a puppet. A small child can be a superhero."
-Fred Rogers
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As we take time to reflect upon our summer playtime in Preschool 4, some of our favorite moments took place outdoors in the backyard of the Friends Meeting House on Ellsworth Avenue. It is the perfect spot for our students to explore, create, improvise and imagine based on their own individual interests.
At UCDC, the best learning happens when ideas are based on the children’s interests. Here are just a few of their ideas: insect scavenger hunts, watching a black beetle dig out of his hole, collecting sticks in the wagon to build a fire, pushing/pulling the bike on a hill, playing catch with the large, red ball and pretending to be fairies with magic wands in the wooded area.
Towards the end of the summer, we introduced a bag of old, but beautifully-colored silk scarves in a variety of shapes, sizes and patterns as an open-ended play activity. At first, one friend ran around the open yard as the scarf flowed behind him. A small group of friends wanted to tie them around their bodies to look like dresses. A large group decided their scarves were capes and they were superheroes who would save the day!
To the children, they are just “playing” but all the learning that takes place in the midst of their play is invaluable. Through their play they are learning to take turns, solve problems, scientific investigation, aero-dynamics, communication skills, physics, counting and teamwork.
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FYI
- We are continuing to host many observations throughout the month of October and into the month of November. These students are from an early childhood introductory course at the University and they are required to observe four times for two hours each. They will utilize both the observation booth and the classrooms for their observations.
- Our Professional Development Days for 2019 have changed. We will no longer close on Wednesday, March 13th, 2019 but we will close on Friday, January 11th, 2019 instead. This PDD will be devoted to requirements for our upcoming NAEYC re-accreditation process. Thank you for your understanding in this change - NAEYC is extremely important and this time is valued!
- The preschoolers of UCDC are creating red, white and blue pieces of art that will be distributed to guests during one of Pitt's Veteran's Day events.
- We continue to raise money for the United Way here at UCDC. Almost half of our staff donated to the United Way campaign. We also sold snacks and raised over $100 for the general fund. Live United!
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Preschool Wisdoms
This month, we asked the preschoolers of Preschool One what they love about their classroom. Read on to learn more about what makes Preschool One awesome!
- I like to play upstairs in housekeeping. - Jordan
- I like making necklaces. - Rory
- I like fire drills. - Everett
- I like lunch and playing in floor toys. - Ryan
- I like playing upstairs in floor toys with cars. - Cece
- I like fire drills. - Kamden
- I like playing in housekeeping. - Marcela
- I like playing with numbers upstairs. - Sasha
- I like the noise from fire drills. - Austin
- I like picking jobs, and playing in floor toys with trains, and building blocks, and instruments, and …. - Miles
- I love Preschool 4. - Dyllan
- I like playing downstairs in floor toys. - Ethan
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Fun Events Planned - Check it out!
On Saturday, November 3rd, the Carnegie Library (Main) is having an
Un-Birthday party
, where they will read birthday stories, unwrap birthday 'presents', create crafts, and of course eat birthday cake! This will be a celebration of everyone's birthday, regardless of what month it's in.
Then, on Sunday, November 4th, they're having,
Celebrate: Black Panther.
They will make buttons, create a mancala game board, make bracelets, learn about the continent of Africa, decorate a black panther mask, and eat cookies.
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As you can see, the playground is really starting to look less like a construction site and more like a play space! The concrete work is complete and in the next few weeks we'll see the pouring of the surfacing, completion of the roof on the pavilion, sod installation and lots of greenery being planted. We're looking forward to seeing the changes!
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Lost and Found: Missing glow bracelet!
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Professional Development Day Happenings
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We had a very busy Professional Development Day on Monday, the 15th. It's always rejuvenating to spend the day together as a team!
We spent a lot of time working on our NAEYC re-accreditation in our classroom teams. The re-accreditation process is a lengthy process which allows teachers to re-evaluate their classrooms and teaching practices, discover what they do best, and create long-term change in areas of weakness. But mostly, it has been validating what we do here at UCDC as far as best practices in early childhood education. There are ten standards that are reflected upon and each one forces the teachers to comb through their every action and decision in an early childhood classroom in order to discover what is best practice. As part of this self reflective process, each age level is required to create a portfolio documenting their findings. This is a lengthy process, but in the end proves to provide us with amazing self-generated feedback allowing us to grow into an even better program!
The remainder of the Professional Development Day with half of the group watching and reflecting upon,
Won't You Be My Neighbor, the Mr. Rogers documentary, and the other half of the group was in a book club discussion about freeing children of gender stereotypes with Jamie and Jenny. Both sessions were informative and will help us to grow and allow us to create even more positive change.
Finally, our day ended by creating bags for the
100,000 Books Campaign through the United Way. Each staff member was granted the ability to use their creativity to design a bag for a child and add a donated book to this bag. T
he campaign's goal is to create supportive connections between adult volunteers and at-risk kids to improve the reading skills of children in our neighborhoods. The program seeks to give kids better access to quality books and to reinforce the importance of building early literacy skills for parents and caregivers.
Our day also included a delicious taco bar which was a hit for all!
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UCDC utilizes a child centered, extended family approach that is fostered by supporting the developmental needs of all children. We foster children's self esteem, creative abilities, sense of belonging and success by implementing a developmentally appropriate curriculum based on NAEYC and Keystone STARS standards, through a play-based approach to learning. We support families and partner with them to provide an environment that welcomes their collaboration and supports both cultural and family preferences.
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