At Apple Hill Academy daycare center, we take a “hands-on” approach to teaching, and this means using multi-sensory teaching methods whenever possible. Finger painting allows children to learn through their senses and can be used with babies beginning at age eighteen months. Toddlers in our childcare center prefer this activity hands down to others! The term “hands down” dates to the 1800s. It is a horse racing term, used to describe the point in the
At Apple Hill Academy daycare center, our babies love to use stacking toys because the colors are quite attractive, and the experience is challenging. As babies try to figure out what goes together and how things fit, they are learning hand-eye coordination as well as the concept of relative size. The activity of balancing different sized objects on top of one another teaches babies at our childcare center to learn to sort and stack from biggest to
Saint Augustine of Hippo once said: “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.” Isn’t it wonderful that during times of travel restrictions, children can appreciate traveling together to wonderful places in their imaginations? Two of our students at Apple Hill Academy childcare center recently enjoyed a reading trip together as they practiced reading out loud. We hope they will become “well-read” adults and remain friends for a
“An unsharpened pencil is like a talent undeveloped: a whole lot of potential just needing to be sharpened and defined to a perfect point!” While we do not know who the author of this statement is, we do understand the teaching “point” that has been made, and it is not about lead pencils! The modern lead pencil (made of a form of pure carbon “graphite”) was invented in 1795 by a scientist named Nicholas-Jacques Conte.
Our Preschool children are fascinated by the light table. They experiment with various types of “blocks” such as lace or other textured material as they place the fabric on the surface. The children watch wide-eyed as different shapes emerge through the darkness and into the light. For those of us who experimented with pre-digital photography, watching images form out of darkness into light is reminiscent of the “dark room” methods we used to develop black
