Curriculum Focus Areas

Infant Early Education at Brightside Academy:

Our early education curriculum is guided by The Creative Curriculum for Infants, Toddlers, & Two’s (Teaching Strategies, 2011); we focus on five areas of growth and learning:

  • The Foundation for All Learning: Brightside Academy lays the foundation for your infant to develop strong social skills and positive attitudes toward learning.
    For very young children, learning depends upon the relationships they form with adults in their lives. We provide daily opportunities for social interaction with your child. We personally care for them, talk with them in a calm and respectful manner, take joy in their discoveries, have appropriate expectations for what they can do, and positively guide their behavior.
  • Building Language Skills: Brightside Academy helps your infant learn how to communicate with others.
    A baby’s brain is ready to learn language! When young children are with caring adults who talk, read and sing with them daily, they want to communicate. To strengthen this determination, our teachers interact with your child daily; tell stories and sing songs to model conversational skills; and use picture books to build association between sounds, objects and words.
  • Empowering the “Creative Thinker”: Brightside Academy prepares your child to think and problem solve.
    Learning mathematical and analytical concepts and language gives children a sense of order and a way to make predictions, comparisons and to solve problems. Through daily activities and exploration, children notice similarities and differences, cause and effect relationships, organize information, and begin to develop understanding about numbers, patterns, space and shapes.
  • Exploring like Scientists: Brightside Academy provides opportunities for your child to ask and answer questions about their world.
    Young children are curious and eager investigators; they wonder about what they see, challenge their ideas, observe what happens, and draw conclusions. They investigate their world through their senses. Therefore, our teachers provide materials and opportunities that support such inquiry. We watch, appreciate and talk with them about what they are doing and learning.
  • Developing a Healthy Body: Brightside Academy provides opportunities for a balanced lifestyle: activity, rest and nutrition.
    As your child grows, we will support their physical development by providing them with supportive and safe materials, equipment and age appropriate activity. We will also ensure that your child’s daily experiences meet their needs for rest and nutrition.

Toddler Early Education at Brightside Academy:

Our early education curriculum is guided by The Creative Curriculum for Infants, Toddlers, & Two’s (Teaching Strategies, 2011); we focus on five areas of growth and learning:

  • The Foundation for All Learning: Brightside Academy lays the foundation for your toddler to develop strong social skills and positive attitudes toward learning.
    For very young children, learning depends upon the relationships they form with adults in their lives. We provide daily opportunities for social interaction with your child. We personally care for them, talk with them in a calm and respectful manner, take joy in their discoveries, have appropriate expectations for what they can do, and positively guide their behavior.
  • Building Language Skills: Brightside Academy helps your toddler learn how to communicate with others.
    One of the greatest achievements in the first three years of life is the development of language. Daily, we offer a variety of experiences that enable children to acquire language skills, hear different sounds and rhythms, enjoy books and stories, and explore writing. Our teachers use storytelling and word games to help your child practice imitating and responding, asking questions and following simple directions, and engage in conversation that encourages children to share ideas and feelings as well as work through questions and concerns.
  • Empowering the “Creative Thinker”: Brightside Academy prepares your child to learn about their world.
    Toddlers discover new things about their world every day. When they actively explore space, compare amounts, and sort and match objects, they begin to learn about number concepts, geometry, cause and effect, and logical relationships. Our toddler teachers provide various opportunities for exploration and manipulation that allow children to enhance these skills while supported and having fun.
  • Exploring like Scientists: Brightside Academy provides opportunities for your child to ask and answer questions about their world.
    Young children are curious and eager investigators; they wonder about what they see, challenge their ideas, observe what happens, and draw conclusions. In particular, they are curious and want to investigate the physical, natural, and social worlds around them. Throughout the day, toddlers are given opportunities to touch, taste, look at, listen to, smell and manipulate objects. Teachers support children’s learning through frequent interaction, planned activity and opportunity for exploration.
  • Developing a Healthy Body: Brightside Academy provides opportunities for toddlers to learn about themselves.
    As your child grows, we will support their health and physical development by providing them with supportive and safe materials, equipment and age appropriate activity. Our teachers appropriately discuss body parts through stories, song and rhyme. Our toddler classrooms promote self-care skills such as feeding, cleaning and dressing, and support large motor development and eye-hand coordination through a variety of activities such as kicking balls, tossing, writing, drawing and lacing.

Preschool Early Education at Brightside Academy:

Our early education curriculum is guided by research-based curricula;the primary goal of our preschool classrooms is kindergarten readiness, focusing on five areas of learning:

  • The Foundation for All Learning: Brightside Academy provides varied opportunities for preschoolers to develop strong social skills and positive attitudes towards learning.
    Preschool children learn best whenever they experience consistent and secure environments and relationships with adults. Our preschool classrooms are designed to be responsive to children’s needs and interests. In addition, teachers purposefully plan activities and experiences to help children develop foundational skills needed in kindergarten while also being supportive toward their individual abilities. Teachers focus a lot on children’s social and emotional development, empowering confidence, exploration and independence. We use character-building activities to help identify emotions; have group discussions to practice sharing ideas, thoughts and feelings; and provide opportunities to cooperate, negotiate, problem-solve and make independent choices.
  • Building Language and Literacy Skills: Brightside Academy helps to strengthen your child’s language skills.
    Preschoolers are fascinated by language. They are interested in communicating with others as well as listening to what others have to convey. Their vocabulary begins to expand at a rapid rate as they display signs of pre-literacy and writing skills. To enhance these skills, preschool teachers provide daily reading and writing experiences. Classroom areas, materials and activities are developed to empower children to connect sounds to letters, pictures to words, and writing strokes to meanings. Teachers work on basic sight words in fun and interactive ways, and help to develop children’s phonemic awareness through literacy-based games, books and puzzles.
  • Empowering the “Creative Thinker”: Brightside Academy helps children analytically ask questions and draw conclusions about the world.
    Preschoolers are starting to become curious about concepts outside of their immediate “world.” They are fascinated with understanding how things work and why things occur. Preschool teachers encourage these fascinations by allowing children to use their senses when exploring various materials and environments. Teachers provide opportunities to ask and answer open-ended questions, experiment with cause and effect relationships, learn about various places and people, as well as develop a curiosity around mathematical concepts such as counting, patterning and geometry.
  • Exploring like Scientists: Brightside Academy helps children to appropriately experiment within their physical, natural and social worlds.
    Young children are curious and eager investigators; they wonder about what they see, challenge their ideas, observe what happens, and draw conclusions. In particular, they are curious about and want to investigate their physical, natural and social worlds. Throughout the day, preschoolers are given varied opportunities to investigate and experiment with materials and activities that are a part of “everyday life.” Teachers support children’s learning through frequent interaction, planned activity and opportunity for exploration.
  • Developing a Healthy Body: Brightside Academy helps your child strengthen their physical development and abilities.
    As your child grows, we will support their health and physical development by providing them with supportive and safe materials, equipment and age appropriate activity. Our preschool classrooms address both large and small muscle development, strengthening hand-eye coordination, muscle movement and balance, and technique. Through varied opportunities, our curriculum helps to strengthen children’s fine motor skills through the use of scissors, stencils, lacing cards and drawing tools. Teachers promote large motor development with obstacle courses, balancing activities and bikes; and, the Preschool Program encourages awareness of physical well-being and healthy eating habits.

School-age Early Education at Brightside Academy:

Our early education curriculum is guided by the 21st Century Philosophy of Learning; our School-age Program focuses on five areas of learning:

  • The Foundation for All Learning: Brightside Academy provides varied opportunities for children to strengthen their social skills and positive attitudes toward learning.
    Children learn best whenever they experience environments that provide a sense of security and belonging. Our school-age classrooms are designed to be responsive to children’s needs and interests, while also encouraging healthy peer relationships. Teachers focus a lot on children’s social and emotional development and character building. Varied opportunities that allow for the children to work together, negotiate, problem solve, complete tasks and analyze outcomes are provided daily.  
  • Building Language and Literacy Skills: Brightside Academy helps your child to develop effective communication skills.
    School-age children are social beings. They are fascinated by the multi-faceted way in which we communicate. Their vocabulary continues to expand as they learn new ways to convey messages and meanings to others. In addition, their literacy and writing skills become refined. To enhance these skills, school-age teachers provide daily reading and writing experiences. Classroom areas, materials and activities are developed that empower children to experiment with language and an appreciation for literature.
  • Empowering the “Creative Thinker”: Brightside Academy helps children find fun in learning.
    Children are curious about how things work and why things occur. Our school-age teachers encourage children to creatively think about their questions by allowing them to use their senses when exploring various materials and environments. They provide opportunities for project or question-based learning, experiment with cause and effect relationships, learn about various places and people, as well as develop a curiosity around mathematical concepts.
  • Exploring like Scientists: Brightside Academy helps children to appropriately experiment within their physical, natural and social worlds.
    Children are curious and eager investigators; they wonder about what they see, challenge ideas, observe what happens, and draw conclusions. In particular, they are curious about and want to investigate their physical, natural and social worlds. Daily, school-age children are given varied opportunities to investigate and experiment with materials and activities that are a part of “everyday life.” Teachers support children’s learning through frequent interaction, planned activity and opportunity for leadership, project facilitation, experimentation and reporting.  
  • Developing a Healthy Body: Brightside Academy helps your child strengthen their physical development and abilities.
    As your child grows, we will support their health and physical development by providing them with supportive and safe materials, equipment and age appropriate activity. Our teachers work to build children’s stamina through small- and large-group games. They focus on endurance, balance and strength by providing daily physical activities, and establish the link between physical activity and proper nutrition in creating a healthy lifestyle.