Smart Start Academy

Showing posts with label New Jersey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Jersey. Show all posts

Our Goals | Toddler Program

Related image

Our Goals
The most important goal we have in our school for toddlers is to help each student experience meaningful and lifelong learning experiences. Rather than making our students conform to one way of learning or only learning in the classroom, we work hard to promote active thinking and exploring how things work. Our highly trained teachers facilitate purposeful play and intentional teaching practices.
We work to ensure that each student who leaves our daycare for toddlers has a great foundation for learning that will last their entire life. When a child starts off on the right foot, it can help them enter into the later educational programs with more excitement and understanding. These two factors have a lot of influence on how successful a student is in the learning process now and in the future.
We know that parents expect more from a daycare than just simply taking care of their child’s basic needs. We want to instill a love of learning, improving life skills, and a desire to be self aware in each of our students. Our toddler program works to make life easier for the student and their parents. We work hard to ensure we are giving the best quality of experiences to your toddler so that you know they are getting everything that they need during their formative years.

Smart Start Academy’s Tuition Policy

Image result for Tuition child



Smart Start Academy requires a full academic school year (Sept-June) commitment from all of our families. If commitment is not met, security placement fee, tuition, and yearly school supplies fees are forfeited. The security placement fee is not refundable, non-transferableand will only be applied to the last month of the academic school year (June).
Parents are responsible to pay for the full program tuition chosen regardless of holidays, inclement weather and/or desired start dates/student absences.

Pre-K Program Focus Areas

Image result for Pre-K Program 

Math Concepts: Our math program focuses on concepts such as measuring, predicting, patterns, spatial relationships, sorting and problem solving.
Science Concepts: Students are encouraged to recognize and investigate cause-and-effect relationships in everyday experiences.
Creative Art: Through our creative art program, our students develop an appreciation for dance, art, music, dramatic play, storytelling and visual arts.
Health & Wellness: Our health and wellness program highlights the importance of healthy nutrition and daily physical activity while also teaching our students safety and injury prevention skills. Through a series of fun, heart accelerating activities, our students learn the benefits of staying active in order to promote healthy lifelong behaviors.
Social Emotional: Students show care and concern for others. Develop healthy relationships with teachers and peers and learn how to express their feelings, needs and wants in a healthy and respectful manner.
Physical Skills/ Gross/Fine Motor: Students build on eye-hand coordination to use everyday tools. Through this process, students learn how to manipulate a variety of tools including eating utensils, pencils, scissors, blocks, etc. Students also develop motor coordination and skill using objects for a range of physical activities.
Language and Foreign Languages: Through conversation, storytelling, and technology, students develop an understanding of spoken language and world languages. Students are exposed to all forms of communication including English, sign language and world languages in order to enhance comprehension and communication skills.

Baby Sign Language

Image result for Baby Sign LanguageOther children who benefit from learning sign language are those who are experiencing a communication delay, have a communication disorder, or show signs of autism. These are not uncommon in children and some families have found that learning sign language can help them to start communicating. It seems that some children just become comfortable pointing for the things that they need, so they find no reason to learn to vocalize their wants and needs.

Of course, these signs are no good to you as a parent if you do not know what they are and can’t use them at home. We work with parents to teach them all the signs that infants learn here along with how to support the learning and communicate with their child when they are at home.



Still struggling with homework?

Kids are more successful in school when parents take an active interest in their homework — it shows
kids that what they do is important.
Of course, helping with homework shouldn't mean spending hours hunched over a desk. Parents can be supportive by demonstrating study and organization skills, explaining a tricky problem, or just encouraging kids to take a break. And who knows? Parents might even learn a thing or two!
Here are some tips to guide the way:
  1. Know the teachers  and what they're looking for. Attend school events, such as parent-teacher conferences, to meet your child's teachers. Ask about their homework policies and how you should be involved.
  2. Set up a homework-friendly area. Make sure kids have a well-lit place to complete homework. Keep supplies — paper, pencils, glue, scissors — within reach.
  3. Schedule a regular study time. Some kids work best in the afternoon, following a snack and play period; others may prefer to wait until after dinner.
  4. Help them make a plan. On heavy homework nights or when there's an especially hefty assignment to tackle, encourage your child break up the work into manageable chunks. Create a work schedule for the night if necessary — and take time for a 15-minute break every hour, if possible.
  5. Keep distractions to a minimum. This means no TV, loud music, or phone calls. (Occasionally, though, a phone call to a classmate about an assignment can be helpful.)
  6. Make sure kids do their own work. They won't learn if they don't think for themselves and make their own mistakes. Parents can make suggestions and help with directions. But it's a kid's job to do the learning.
  7. Be a motivator and monitor. Ask about assignments, quizzes, and tests. Give encouragement, check completed homework, and make yourself available for questions and concerns.
  8. Set a good example. Do your kids ever see you diligently balancing your budget or reading a book? Kids are more likely to follow their parents' examples than their advice.
  9. Praise their work and efforts. Post an aced test or art project on the refrigerator. Mention academic achievements to relatives.
  10. If there are continuing problems with homework, get help. Talk about it with your child's teacher. Some kids have trouble seeing the board and may need glasses; others might need an evaluation for a learning problem or attention disorder.

Baby Steps: Ready to Go Outside?

The weather is finally starting to warm up, and you're sick of being stuck inside. But you're worried about taking your infant outside because Aunt Eleanor says that a newborn should stay in for the first few weeks, or even months. Should you listen?

Actually, no.

As long as your baby is healthy to begin with, going outside on a mild day can be a boon for you both (if your baby is a preemie or has a weak immune system or other health problem, talk to your doctor about possible precautions). The nice weather and sunshine are naturally invigorating, and lots of moms swear that babies sleep better after getting some fresh air -- many squeeze in naptime outside, too. Being outdoors is far better than being in a room with poor ventilation; some European hospitals place newborns outside for short stints daily! There's no way you can filter every microbe that floats by, so don't worry too much about taking your infant out for a walk. Enjoy!


Pre-K Program Focus Areas


Math Concepts: Our math program focuses on concepts such as measuring, predicting, patterns, spatial relationships, sorting and problem solving.
Science Concepts: Students are encouraged to recognize and investigate cause-and-effect relationships in everyday experiences.
Creative Art: Through our creative art program, our students develop an appreciation for dance, art, music, dramatic play, storytelling and visual arts.
Health & Wellness: Our health and wellness program highlights the importance of healthy nutrition and daily physical activity while also teaching our students safety and injury prevention skills. Through a series of fun, heart accelerating activities, our students learn the benefits of staying active in order to promote healthy lifelong behaviors.
Social Emotional: Students show care and concern for others. Develop healthy relationships with teachers and peers and learn how to express their feelings, needs and wants in a healthy and respectful manner.
Physical Skills/ Gross/Fine Motor: Students build on eye-hand coordination to use everyday tools. Through this process, students learn how to manipulate a variety of tools including eating utensils, pencils, scissors, blocks, etc. Students also develop motor coordination and skill using objects for a range of physical activities.
Language and Foreign Languages: Through conversation, storytelling, and technology, students develop an understanding of spoken language and world languages. Students are exposed to all forms of communication including English, sign language and world languages in order to enhance comprehension and communication skills.

Preschool is Important

Every parent knows the importance of what a good education means for their children. How they thrive in a classroom setting can set the tone for how they thrive in a successful career as an adult. You encourage and push your children to get good grades, so that they may be able to further their education by attending, and graduating from, an exceptional college.
Even though the end game is to help your kids become successful adults, often parents overlook the importance of the beginning of an education. Starting your child in a preschool program is the first step to years of happy and intelligent learning.
Here are 5 reasons why having your child attend preschool may help them throughout their entire lives:
1- Opportunity for Growth and Preparing Children for Kindergarten
Most likely this will be the first time your child is in a structured setting with groups of other children and teachers. This is where they will learn to share and follow instructions, which will be the foundation for learning in elementary school.
Exposing your child at a young age to letters, numbers, and shapes helps them feel comfortable and more accustomed to learning before entering the more academic class setting of kindergarten.
Although some parents feel that preschools tend to focus too much on the pre-math and pre-literacy skills, which will take away from play time and push a child to grow up too fast, our curriculum focuses on developing the entire child rather than just the areas that other schools deem necessary. Helping students find areas in which they excel naturally is a great way to boost their self-esteem and knowledge of themselves. Having that confidence when they move into the kindergarten classroom will give them a better personal space for learning.
2- Social and Emotional Development
In order for a child to build trusting relationships with adults outside the family they need to spend time away from parents. Our program encourages the nurturing of warm relationships among children, teachers, and parents.
Young children will develop social skills and emotional self-control in “real time.” A great teacher knows that 3 – 4 year olds will learn from their experiences or “teachable moments” and take the time to help them learn and understand, such as how to manage anger or frustration and how to help them understand the impact their aggressive or hurtful behavior may have on another child.
3- Making Friends and Playing Well With Others
Although the preschool environment may seem chaotic it is actually quite structured. Having an organized classroom space encourages social interaction. “Structured” environment doesn’t mean that adults are constantly directing activities, on the contrary, children are encouraged to find each other and play on their own, which teaches them how to have positive interactions with the other children.
4- Children get to Make Choices
Some children know what they want and when they want it. They have no problem entering a group or activity that interest them, but others may not have the skills to enter other children’s play space. We encourage and teach them ways to feel comfortable knowing what they want and suggestions on the best way to join in on the fun.
5- Children Learn to Take Care of Themselves and Others
Learning to take care of themselves and help others gives young children a sense of competence and self-worth. They are encouraged to view themselves as a resource for their peers. A teacher may ask a “veteran” preschooler to help a newcomer learn where certain toys or coloring books are kept.
These are only a handful of the amazing things your child will learn in a preschool environment. Whether you are looking for the best Hoboken preschool or the best Jersey City preschool, our program focuses on each individual child. Preschoolers are not accustomed to sitting still and listening to lectures, which is why we don’t teach that way. Through the world of hands-on teaching, exploration, and movement we maintain flexibility for the children and encourage them to independently explore their specific areas of interest.
Take a look at our events calendar as summer camp prep week, and end of year parent/teacher conferences are just around the corner. Contact us today for more information on admission dates and prices. Start your preschooler today on a path that leads to successful lives through proper education.

You Can't Teach Creativity, But....

Many people assume that creativity is an inborn talent that their kids either do or do not have: just as all children are not equally intelligent, all children are not equally creative. But actually, creativity is more skill than inborn talent, and it is a skill parents can help their kids develop.
Because it is a key to success in nearly everything we do, creativity is a key component of health and happiness and a core skill to practice with kids. Creativity is not limited to artistic and musical expression—it is also essential for science, math, and even social and emotional intelligence.

Creative people are more flexible and better problem solvers, which makes them more able to adapt to technological advances and deal with change—as well as take advantage of new opportunities.
Many researchers believe we have fundamentally changed the experience of childhood in such a way that impairs creative development. Toy and entertainment companies feed kids an endless stream of prefab characters, images, props and plot-lines that allow children to put their imaginations to rest. Children no longer need to imagine a stick is a sword in a game or story they've imagined: they can play Star Wars with a specific light-saber in costumes designed for the specific role they are playing.

Here are some ideas for fostering creativity in your kids:
  1. Provide the resources they need for creative expression. The key resource here is time. Kids need a lot of time for unstructured, child-directed, imaginative play –unencumbered by adult direction, and that doesn't depend on a lot of commercial stuff (see this post about unstructured play).
    Space is also a resource your kids need. Unless you don't mind creative messes everywhere, give them a specific place where they can make a mess, like room in your attic for dress-up, a place in the garage for painting, or a corner in your family room for Legos.
    Next time someone asks for a gift suggestion for your kids, ask for things like art supplies, cheap cameras, costume components, building materials. Put these in easy-to-deal-with bins that your kids can manage.

  2. Make your home a Petri dish for creativity. In addition to creative spaces, you need to foster a creative atmosphere.
    Solicit a high volume of different ideas, but resist the urge to evaluate the ideas your kids come up with. At dinnertime, for example, you could brainstorm activities for the upcoming weekend, encouraging the kids to come up with things they've never done before. Don't point out which ideas aren't possible, and don't decide which ideas are best. The focus of creative activities should be on process: generating (vs. evaluating) new ideas.
    Encourage kids to make mistakes and fail. Yes, fail – kids who are afraid of failure and judgment will curb their own creative thought. Share the mistakes you've made recently, so they get the idea that it is okay to flub up. Laughing at yourself when you blow it is a happiness habit.
    Celebrate innovation and creativity. Cover your walls with art and other evidence of creative expression. Tell your kids all about your favorite artists, musicians, and scientists. Share your passion for architecture or photography or that new band you want to listen to all the time. Embrace new technologies like Twitter so your kids grow to find change exciting, not over-whelming or intimidating.

  3. Allow kids the freedom and autonomy to explore their ideas and do what they want. Don't be so bossy. (If that isn't the pot calling the kettle black, who knows what is.) Stop living in fear that they are going to be kidnapped or not get into a great college. Statistically, the odds are very low that they'll be kidnapped, and I'm here to tell you that I'm not a happier person because I went to an Ivy League school.
    External constraints—making them color within the lines, so to speak—can reduce flexibility in thinking. In one study, just demonstrating how to put together a model reduced the creative ways that kids accomplished this task.

Our Educators

Smart Start Academy values and takes great pride in their educators. Our teachers are carefully selected based on their education, teaching experience and their passion for teaching. All of our lead teachers must meet or exceed the qualifications set forth by the DCF, in addition to completing extensive training and orientation classes at S.S.A.

Our educators must also undergo an extensive background screening, health screening and attend annual professional development conferences in order to support continuous professional growth and development.

At S.S.A., we strive to train and develop the “whole” teacher. Through training, professional development and mentoring, our teachers are given the tools to successfully teach our students in a positive and nurturing manner.

Together, our highly qualified teachers and directors, create a positive learning environment for our students and families!

We'd Love to Hear What You Think!



We take great pride in our education programs and we hope you love them too! We'd love to hear what you think of our programs. Leave your honest review here so we can make our programs even better!

Help Your Child Become a Math Wiz Early!



Children are using early math skills throughout their daily routines and activities. This is good news as these skills are important for being ready for school. But early math doesn’t mean taking out the calculator during playtime. Even before they start school, most children develop an understanding of addition and subtraction through everyday interactions. For example, Thomas has two cars; Joseph wants one. After Thomas shares one, he sees that he has one car left (Bowman, Donovan, & Burns, 2001, p. 201). Other math skills are introduced through daily routines you share with your child—counting steps as you go up or down, for example. Informal activities like this one give children a jumpstart on the formal math instruction that starts in school.
What math knowledge will your child need later on in elementary school? Early mathematical concepts and skills that first-grade mathematics curriculum builds on include: (Bowman et al., 2001, p. 76).
  • Understanding size, shape, and patterns
  • Ability to count verbally (first forward, then backward)
  • Recognizing numerals
  • Identifying more and less of a quantity
  • Understanding one-to-one correspondence (i.e., matching sets, or knowing which group has four and which has five)
More advanced mathematical skills are based on an early math “foundation”—just like a house is built on a strong foundation. In the toddler years, you can help your child begin to develop early math skills by introducing ideas like: (From Diezmann & Yelland, 2000, and Fromboluti & Rinck, 1999.)

Number Sense

This is the ability to count accurately—first forward. Then, later in school, children will learn to count backwards. A more complex skill related to number sense is the ability to see relationships between numbers—like adding and subtracting. Ben (age 2) saw the cupcakes on the plate. He counted with his dad: “One, two, three, four, five, six…”

Representation

Making mathematical ideas “real” by using words, pictures, symbols, and objects (like blocks). Casey (aged 3) was setting out a pretend picnic. He carefully laid out four plastic plates and four plastic cups: “So our whole family can come to the picnic!” There were four members in his family; he was able to apply this information to the number of plates and cups he chose.

Spatial sense

Later in school, children will call this “geometry.” But for toddlers it is introducing the ideas of shape, size, space, position, direction and movement. Aziz (28 months) was giggling at the bottom of the slide. “What’s so funny?” his Auntie wondered. “I comed up,” said Aziz, “Then I comed down!”

Measurement

Technically, this is finding the length, height, and weight of an object using units like inches, feet or pounds. Measurement of time (in minutes, for example) also falls under this skill area. Gabriella (36 months) asked her Abuela again and again: “Make cookies? Me do it!” Her Abuela showed her how to fill the measuring cup with sugar. “We need two cups, Gabi. Fill it up once and put it in the bowl, then fill it up again.”

Estimation

This is the ability to make a good guess about the amount or size of something. This is very difficult for young children to do. You can help them by showing them the meaning of words like more, less, bigger, smaller, more than, less than. Nolan (30 months) looked at the two bagels: one was a regular bagel, one was a mini-bagel. His dad asked: “Which one would you like?” Nolan pointed to the regular bagel. His dad said, “You must be hungry! That bagel is bigger. That bagel is smaller. Okay, I’ll give you the bigger one. Breakfast is coming up!”

Patterns

Patterns are things—numbers, shapes, images—that repeat in a logical way. Patterns help children learn to make predictions, to understand what comes next, to make logical connections, and to use reasoning skills. Ava (27 months) pointed to the moon: “Moon. Sun go night-night.” Her grandfather picked her up, “Yes, little Ava. In the morning, the sun comes out and the moon goes away. At night, the sun goes to sleep and the moon comes out to play. But it’s time for Ava to go to sleep now, just like the sun.”

Problem-solving

The ability to think through a problem, to recognize there is more than one path to the answer. It means using past knowledge and logical thinking skills to find an answer. Carl (15 months old) looked at the shape-sorter—a plastic drum with 3 holes in the top. The holes were in the shape of a triangle, a circle and a square. Carl looked at the chunky shapes on the floor. He picked up a triangle. He put it in his month, then banged it on the floor. He touched the edges with his fingers. Then he tried to stuff it in each of the holes of the new toy. Surprise! It fell inside the triangle hole! Carl reached for another block, a circular one this time…