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Our Program
“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.”
― Fred Rogers
The Children's Place Program
The Children's Place (TCP) was established in 1981 to provide children aged 2-5 years with a home-like safe and loving environment. The program is year around, opens daily at 7:15 a.m. and closes at 5:45 p.m. Each classroom is limited to 12 children and the teacher/child ratio is â…™, or better in the two year old class.
We believe that play is the most natural way for young children to learn and we provide an environment that caters to the interests of the individual children. Our fully qualified teachers support developmentally appropriate social-emotional learning. Our curriculum is built on inquiry-based STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) play/projects that integrate science (children love to question) with the creative perspectives of art and storytelling, the pattern recognition of math and the virtuous cycle of designing, constructing, and reconstructing used in engineering and technology.
Young children are full of curiosity about the world around them and learn best by manipulating their environment. Growing a plant or observing the life cycle of a butterfly helps them understand the science of living things, the interconnectedness of everything, growth, measuring and math and at the same time provide a subject and inspiration for art. Technology is the development of tools, devices and structures. Engineering is designing and building and children love tinkering with things. Building a sand block that stops the water coming from the hose is a challenge that never gets boring. Making a tunnel that is big enough for the toy truck to pass through is a major achievement. Learning that a failed experiment is a key stepping stone for making something that works better is a powerful motivation for perseverance. To understand that working together as a team is much more effective than working alone prepares children for real life.
Developing the whole child is a primary goal at TCP. Each classroom has a daily Spanish program developed and provided by native speaker classroom teachers. While music is part of the daily program, one day a week an extra class is provided by an outside organization. An optional sports enrichment class can be purchased for an additional fee. Children spend at least half of their time outside in our recently remodeled playground, climbing, running, jumping, biking, playing hide and seek, and enjoying the sandbox or waterplay. We have local neighborhood walks and longer field trips throughout the year.
While TCP is part of the Community United Church of Christ of San Carlos, our program is run under an independent Board of Directors, is non-sectarian and the composition of families represents a typical diverse Bay Area world-wide mix.
We invite you and your child to schedule a visit and join us in our adventure.