Ratios and Group size

The ratio refers to the number of children per teacher in the   classroom. The City of Idaho Falls has established a point system to determine ratios for classrooms with mixed aged groups. One teacher can have up to 12 points.

How much does it cost?

Frog Room: Infant Program

6 weeks-12 months

Our goal in our infant program is to help your child to feel loved and secure.  We believe it is important to individualize for each child so our schedules are based on the needs of each child.  They sleep and eat on their own schedules.  Our infant room staff holds and snuggles your baby during bottle feeding.  We have floor and tummy time several times a day.  As infants become more mobile, our staff helps them to develop their large and fine motor skills, and we practice sitting, crawling, standing and walking.  We also read books, sing songs and have lots of conversations with your baby to help with language development.  We believe that social and emotional learning begins in the infant room.  Our teachers are trained to help infants by identifying their feelings, helping them begin to self-regulate, introducing them to their peers and the concept of playing with others.

Frog Room: Toddler Program: 1-year olds

As children turn 1, we begin to introduce more structure into their day.  We have set mealtimes and set naptimes.  The rest of the day is still based on the needs of the child.  We introduce a more formal circle time with songs and movement activities and begin to have planned activities.  We provide lots of sensory activities, fine and large motor skills, and literacy activities like reading books and singing songs.

Owl Room: Preschool 1:

2-year-olds and young 3-year-olds

In our Owl Room, we are focusing on learning friendship skills, and naming our emotions and beginning skills in self-regulation.  We are also working on potty training.  We work with you as a family as your child shows signs of being ready to potty train.  We potty train as the child is ready and at their speed.  We also work on routines and procedures in the classroom, like handwashing, how to participate in circle time, how to clean-up, how to play in centers, and play with friends.

Bear Room: Preschool/Pre-K: Ages 3-5 yrs

In our Preschool/Pre-K room we build on the things taught in the Owl Room.  We continue to work on the social and emotional learning.  We continue to teach friendship skills and emotional awareness.  We work on problem solving skills.  We also work on math, literacy, science, fine and gross motor skills.  We work on recognizing letters and their sounds.  We also work on writing our letters.

Bear Room: School Age

Our school age program continues to focus on the social and emotional learning.  We continue to build on their friendship skills, emotional awareness and problem-solving skills.  We also are working on teaching them life skills.  We provide an opportunity for children to do their homework.  During the summer we have a summer camp, and we do field trips weekly and lots of fun activities.

We offer a variety of rates to accommodate any parent's crazy schedule.  We have rates for any work schedule between 2 and 5 days a week.  We offer half day or full day.  We work around custody/visitation agreements too.

The best way to know how much childcare will cost for your family is to visit with Debbie.  She can help you and she would love to meet you and your child(ren). Click on the Book A Tour tab to schedule an appointment.

Sandy's

Preschool

Classrooms and Curriculum

Curriculum

The group size is the number of children in a single classroom.  In a very large classroom there may be 36 children and 6 teachers; that would be 42 people in the room with a ratio of 1 teacher to 6 children. Even though the ratio may be low, we believe the group is too large. Our classrooms are small and our group size is small. A group of 8-12 children  with one teacher is beneficial and positively effects your child's learning.

Our Early Childhood Curriculum is based on the four key elements of a child’s development:

 Social and Emotional: Your children will learn to communicate with others both verbally and nonverbally. They will make new friends and gain the confidence, self-esteem, and skills needed to develop healthy relationships.  We work with your child to help them understand and learn the skills necessary to handle their emotions.  We teach them how to recognize and name their own feelings and their friends' feelings.  We teach them skills to self-regulate their feelings, to problem solve and how to be a friend.  We have partnered with IdahoStars and The Preschool Pryamid Model in training our staff in helping children with their social and emotional learning.

Physical: We emphasize the physical health and well-being of your child so she or he can grow up strong and safe. Motor-skill development, mobility, coordination, and exercise all ensure your growing child has a healthy body for a lifetime. We are also part of the USDA Food Program which helps us to provide nutritious meals.

 Cognitive: Our early childhood program helps support the development of memory, perception, judgment, reasoning, critical thinking, and language through developmentally appropriate activities. Children learn reading, writing, math, science, and social studies concepts through play, example and by experiencing the environment around them.