Infants

Growing Up on Our Block begins at birth. The earliest learners are the youngest infants. At birth, babies begin to learn to trust. This builds a foundation for them to learn other important skills. Infants need to know someone really cares about them. They will grasp this concept through the tone of voice and gentle touch a caregiver uses. Once they know that someone really cares about them, then they will discover that they are an important but separate individual.

At Growing Room, we offer individualized infant care through our Primary Caregiver Program. Each baby has a primary caregiver who is responsible for consistently providing care and working with infants and parents as they progress through infancy. This caregiver will also provide exciting activities appropriate for the child's development. We use the Active Learning for Infants curriculum in all of our infant classrooms.   This program will help the infants grow and develop throughout the first year of life.   It is our aim to provide experiences to assist children in creating a picture of who they are, what they can do, and what they think and feel. We want to show them that they are important, unique and competent. We strive to accomplish this through the following key experiences…

Language Development
• Listening & Talking
• Books & Pictures
• Conversations & Sounds

Physical Development
• Large Muscles: Rolling Over, Sitting, Crawling,
   Standing, and Walking
• Small Muscles: Grasping, Picking Up,
   Dropping and Changing Hands

Learning from the World Around Them
• Nature: Outdoor Play, Water Play
• Numbers
• Five Senses
• Shape, Size, and Color
• Tasting Food
• Developing a Sense of Self: Mirror Play

In addition to the planning the caregivers' do for our infants, we also ask that they work together with parents to build a partnership. This partnership can be developed through personal care plans, daily conversations about activities and foods baby enjoys, a sense of home being brought into the classroom (family pictures, favorite blankets, tapes of parents' voices, etc.), and parents visiting and spending time in the classroom. This partnership along with consistent, individualized care is key to the development of trust.