Creative Curriculum at Creative Minds!

We are so excited to provide our families with more information about The Creative Curriculum used at all of our CMLC schools! Communication with families is so important to us and we know there are some days that you have brought home a Daily Communication Report Sheets and wondered “What are Mighty Minutes?” or “What exactly does a Large Group Discussion entail?” or “What curriculum concepts did my child learn about today?” We would like to give you more information about our curriculum; how the lessons are designed, what your kiddos are learning, how they are learning, as well as fun activities that they participate in at school.  

We start off the school year with a beginning of the year study that helps teachers and children get to know each other. It shows students where to locate and find things in the room, what  activities are available, how to explore different interest areas, and outlines expectations for the teachers and kiddos for the year. Based upon teacher observations, teachers are able to choose from a variety of different accredited curriculum concepts within The Creative Curriculum, including but not limited to; Trees, Clothes, Buildings, Reduce/Reuse and Recycle, and a school wide favorite, the Balls Study. Each one focuses on that specific topic for six weeks, engaging them by things like Questions of the Day, which asks something as simple as “Where can you see trees around your neighborhood?” This gets the ball rolling with a concept discussion, engaging them to talk as a group about trees. Then, basic concepts evolve and turn into more complex and academic based learning opportunities. Our Large Group Discussions commonly proceed from this. There are different developmental activities on the curriculum’s intentional teaching cards that focuses on exploration and discovery in several learning areas: Social and emotional, literacy, mathematics, physical, and library. Each age group has an age and developmentally appropriate goal. Often these are our Small Group Activities where the children are able to create, explore, and use critical thinking skills with a teacher-lead project that meets each child’s individual needs. This can range from learning how to follow or create a recipe, showing students how to express their feelings, even acting out a story they have read   for read aloud time. 

Mighty Minutes help create additional learning opportunities during transitional times of day such as waiting in line. It promotes language, math, and learning with movement when the students need a little wiggle time. These can be used as great tool for grabbing the students attention when needed.

Here is a glimpse of some of our current studies in action! The kiddos are exploring the Clothing/Textile Unit at our schools. They’re examining things like buttons, fabrics etc. What are they used for? Interest area activities designed for dressing baby dolls. Are their clothes smaller or bigger than ours? Seeing things like clothes in sensory bins to find what different clothes feel like. Even trying them on in our Dramatic Play areas. During an art activity we had kiddos learn how to describe things, telling their peers what their favorite piece of clothing looks like then creating it during art time. We are even lucky enough to have our families partner with our teachers to come in and show us what clothes from other countries and cultures look and feel like!