Mission Statement & Philosophy

Mission Statement

College of the Canyons Center for Early Childhood Education is committed to providing quality care and education for infants, toddlers and preschool children; modeling an exemplary developmentally appropriate and culturally sensitive learning/lab environment for Parents and Early Childhood Education students.

Philosophy

This preschool experience provides the child with a variety of educational and creative material to stimulate both learning and social interaction while allowing for individual differences, encouraging exploration and providing opportunities to make choices. The primary focus of the program is to promote feelings of competence and self worth which will serve as a strong foundation for future growth.

How Children Learn

Knowledge is not something that is given to children as though they were empty vessels to be filled. Children acquire knowledge about the physical and social worlds in which they live through playful interaction with objects and people. Children do not need to be forced to learn; they are motivated by their own desire to make sense of their world. We implement a developmentally appropriate approach to learning by careful planning and by adapting the environment: schedule, materials and activities to support their learning.

Young children learn by doing. All aspects of the childs' day at the center provide opportunities to encourage growth in all of the developmental areas - physical, social, emotional and intellectual (cognitive). The work of Piaget, Montessori, Erikson and other child development theorists and researchers has demonstrated that learning is a complex process that results from the interaction of children's' own thinking and their experience in the external world. Maturation is an important contributor to learning because it provides a framework from which children's' learning proceeds.