This information is sponsored by our partner at Little Sunshine Playhouse & Preschool. Be sure to check out the Facebook LIVE video we did while touring their University City facility!
I’m so excited to continue our series of posts with Little Sunshine Playhouse & Preschool. If you missed my first post, you can find it here, with lots of info on the facilities as the second St. Louis location prepares to open! We also took a Facebook Live tour of the University City playhouse with a view in to the childcare rooms and the AMAZING outdoor play area- you can still watch it here!
Ok, since we’ve covered a few of the wonderful things about Little Sunshine’s, we thought it would be a good idea to dig in to the importance of early childhood education. There are lots of things to think about when choosing where to send your children and there are a few types of early childhood education options to choose from!
You can homeschool, join a local co-op with other children, or you can enroll in a public or private preschool program. If you enroll in a private preschool program, they will probably have a defined educational philosophy.
Little Sunshine Playhouse’s proprietary curriculum, Creatively Shine™, is based on the Reggio Emilia education philosophy, which is an Italian philosophy that “aims to foster children’s curiosity and creativity to help cultivate a lifelong passion for learning and exploration.” We suggest asking the facilities you are touring about their educational philosophy. This will give you a better idea of their approach.
Enrolling your child in a preschool like Little Sunshine Playhouse &Preschool is also an amazing way to prepare them for kindergarten and the rest of their educational journey. The last stop on our school tour was the Pre-K classroom, which is the last class before the kiddos graduate from the program and head on to elementary school. In this classroom, each child has their own workbooks and the room is equipped with lots of toys so lesson plans are balanced with the play time, which is so important. The children are taught all of the skills that will set them up for success in kindergarten:
- Basic math skills like counting and recognizing numbers
- Recognizing letters, reading and writing
- Learning how to describe observations or tell a simple story
- Drawing, coloring and creating visual art assignments
- Working collaboratively with others
- Sharing
- Creative problem solving
- Communicating one’s feelings appropriately
I don’t know about you, but there is no way we are covering all of this adequately at home right now! If you need any more convincing that a preschool environment is a great choice for childcare, Little Sunshine Playhouse & Preschool says that a recent study found that preschool increases high school graduation rates by 11 percent. Another study shows that children who attended preschool had significantly lower discipline referrals in elementary school and scored higher on math and reading tests.
I’ve overloaded you with information about early childhood education, but I hope it helps when you’re touring childcare facilities and choosing where to send your children. It’s such an overwhelming and stressful decision, but Little Sunshine’s Playhouse and Preschool has given us so many great things to share to help take the edge off!
