Curriculum

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Cognitive Development

All children need environments that help expand their intellects and mental abilities. Cognitive development is a continuous process of discovering, sorting, classifying, evaluating, visualizing, understanding and using information to solve problems and anticipate possibilities and consequences. Help children develop cognitive skills by keeping the following typical behaviors in mind.

Infants

• Can hear and respond to different sounds.
• See and follow slowly moving objects like mobiles and hand-held toys.
• Respond to different smells from birth and turn away from unpleasant odors.
• Learn about objects by putting them in their mouths.
• Imitate actions and behaviors like smiles, simple pat-a-cake games and another baby's crying.

Toddlers

• Seek and find hidden objects.
• Know the location of significant people and note their absence.
• Use play and imagination to explore social and emotional interactions.
• Understand that some objects go together and can be used in sequence. For example, they can put a doll in a bed, cover it with a blanket and indicate "shh" with a finger to the lips.
• Begin to use experiences and observations to try many ways to solve a problem and achieve a goal.
• Begin to assert independence and develop preferences based on experiences.
• Enjoy singing, dancing and looking at picture books with adults.
• Rely on routines and rituals for constructing order in the environment and with other people.
• Can name everyday objects with a vocabulary of up to 300 words for people, animal, foods and events.

Preschoolers

• Follow the sequence and story line of age appropriate books and stories.
• Base their judgments on how some thing looks at the moment.
• Have difficulty distinguishing fantasy from reality.
• Draw circles, squares and letter forms.
• Understand basic shapes and can point to them in the environment.
• Count objects out loud - sometimes with accuracy
• Sort object by characteristics such as color, shape and size.
• Adept with picture puzzles of 10 to 40 pieces.
• Enjoy words, nonsense language, riddles and rhymes.
• Have a vocabulary of up to 2,000 words and use sentences averaging six words.

Grade-schoolers

• Begin to understand symbols like clocks, written words and quantity.
• Can follow multi-part directions and instructions.
• Can use toys and action figures to act out their hostile or aggressive feelings.
• Begin to recognize that the views and interests of others may not be the same as their own.
• Need written word and rich conversation for vocabulary and language exploration.
• Incorporate cause and effect and logical consequences in making behavioral choices.
• Enjoy trial-and-error experiments and projects. Repeated failures result in frustration and negative behaviors.

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