Home Based Child Care
Mission & Vision
Spark Early Learning aspires to provide care and early learning opportunities that are rooted in early childhood education pedagogy and other relevant areas of knowledge; including attachment, social and emotional development, and children's mental health.
Values
Several important values influence the care that Spark Early Learning provides to children and their families.
Calm, Caring & Loving Environment
Free Play & Child Directed Learning
Fostering Emotional Development
Program Statement
The goals of Spark Early Learning are rooted in the four foundations for learning and development outlined in How Does Learning Happen. These goals are also influenced by:
Think, Feel, Act: Lessons from Research about Young Children
Belonging Cultivating Authentic Relationships & Connections
Spark Early Leaning strives to provide safe relationships for children, to prepare them for future learning opportunities and relationships, and to cultivate and maintain meaningful relationships with families.
At Spark Early Learning, you will see:
- Efforts to ease the child's transition to a new caregiver, peers, and setting.
- Connect with children as individuals; accept and encourage each child as the individual they are.
- Attuning and responding to physical and emotional states and cues.
- Promotion of positive relationships between peers and opportunities to develop social competence.
- Assisting children in finding new ways to achieve their goals when responding to difficult behaviors.
Ontario Ministry of Education, 2014
Well-Being Nurturing Healthy Development & Well-Being
Spark Early Leaning strives to care for children in a way that promotes their physical well-being, their self-care capabilities, and their mental health and well-being.
At Spark Early Learning, you will see:
- Opportunities to develop and practice making healthy choices in regards to food, sleep, and physical activity.
- Opportunities to be physically active outdoors in a way that uses children's bodies, minds, and senses.
- Gentle encouragement of self-regulation, including the ability to cope with and recover from stressors and frustrations.
- Holistic support towards families and their unique strengths.
Engagement Creating Contexts for Learning through Exploration, Play, & Inquiry
Spark Early Leaning strives to involve the ideas and interests of children to create meaningful and engaging experiences, provide ample time for exploration and thoughtfully treat the environment as a valuable educator.
At Spark Early Learning, you will see:
- An educator that is a co-learner, who is actively engaged in understanding how children learn.
- An organized space with ample room and open-ended materials to encourage exploration and complex play.
- Exposure to the natural environment and thoughtful opportunities for risk-taking.
- Opportunities for children to focus attention, manipulate, investigate, observe, question, test theories, solve problems, create, and represent ideas (HDLD, p.37).
Expression Fostering Communication & Expression in All Forms
Spark Early Leaning strives to provide children with meaningful opportunities to initiate and respond to communication, opportunities for creative expression of ideas, and representation of children's ideas, experiences, and skills through documentation.
At Spark Early Learning, you will see
- Opportunities for serve and return interactions that respect children's subtle verbal and non-verbal cues.
- Genuine interest in children's communication and the opportunity that this provides for connection.
- Encouragement of successful communication between peers through supporting language and social skills.
- Creative and engaging representations of the learning by individual children and the group.