All Starz Children's Academy

Infants

 

Approximately 6 weeks to 12 months old

 

Caring for infants is about building relationships – with the babies and with their parents. For many first-time parents, the thought of leaving your newborn baby at school is overwhelming. We promise to help you and your baby through this process, answering questions and communicating with you every step of the way.

 

Our loving and experienced educators work to form a basic trust by showing that your baby’s needs are met on demand. All the caregivers in your child’s room are involved with your baby, comforting, feeding and keeping him safe. You are informed daily of when your child slept, ate, and had a diaper change, as well as what exciting activities she was exposed to that day.

 

Our infant rooms are differentiated by the mobility of the children enrolled:

 

• The first room is for the youngest babies. These babies are not yet mobile or are just beginning to sit up and roll over on their own.

 

• The second room is for babies who are sitting up, crawling, pulling themselves up, and taking those first cautious steps.

 

In each infant room, we provide a nurturing and safe environment where each child can move freely and explore with their senses. Through stimulation of all the senses, early learning begins. We surround the infants with soothing music, storytelling and finger plays, and we provide cuddly toys, mirrors, soft play structures, mobiles, colorful pictures, and tunnels to explore. We introduce simple sign language so the babies can communicate their wants, needs, and observations prior to their verbal development.

 

The cleanliness and safety of our Infant Program is essential to its everyday operation. Older children, including siblings, are not allowed in the infant rooms. To keep the play spaces as clean and sanitary as possible, our infant rooms are a shoe-free environment and each toy is sanitized when a child is through playing with it.

 

In an effort to make it as easy as possible for parents to bring their little ones to school, we provide the crib sheets, bibs, bowls, spoons, and sippy cups. All you need to provide are your child’s bottles and baby food, diapers and wipes, and a few changes of clothes for those messy days. There is also a dedicated room for nursing mothers and a space in the Welcome Area for parents to leave car seats each morning.

 

The infant to teacher ratio in our Infant Program is 4:1.

 

 

Activities

 

Sensory activities include:

• Touching materials with different textures (i.e. soft, fuzzy, smooth, rough)

• Painting with colored ice cubes

• Listening to wind chimes

 

Cognitive activities include:

• Looking at himself in the mirror and making faces at the “other” baby

• Playing peek-a-boo

• Pointing to familiar objects and naming them

 

Language activities include:

• Cooing and babbling back and forth with the baby

• Repeating the child’s name until they recognize it

• Introducing basic sign language words, such as “eat,” “milk,” “more,” “all done,” “please,” “thank you,” and many more

 

Fine motor activities include:

• Grasping rattles and other objects offered by a teacher

• Passing objects from one hand to another

• Picking up cheerios

 

Gross motor activities include:

• Tummy time every day

• Reaching for and grabbing toys, whether hanging or on the floor

• Doing bicycle kicks with the help of a teacher

 

Social and emotional activities include:

• Tummy time face-to-face with friends

• Buggy rides around the school, visiting older siblings and responding to their teacher’s voice as she describes what she is seeing

• Participating in a mini circle time, where the teacher sings a song, uses puppets or reads a book

 

 

We look forward to helping your little one develop into a young toddler.