Our Curriculum

Our learning environments are designed to support each child’s need for independence and exploration. Learning varies based on age, stage of development, and individual interests.  Our curriculum offers a balance of child-selected and teacher initiated activities including math, games and puzzles, home/role play, construction, writing, science, library, woodworking, art and sensory play.

Our Curriculum

Our learning environments are designed to support each child’s need for independence and exploration. Learning varies based on age, stage of development, and individual interests.  Our curriculum offers a balance of child-selected and teacher initiated activities including math, games and puzzles, home/role play, construction, writing, science, library, woodworking, art and sensory play.

 

Child Honoring

In order to meet the unique needs and interests of the children we teach, our curriculum is designed by our own staff with a balanced focus on spiritual development, fine and large motor skills, social skills, emotional intelligence, and self-help skills. Activities are designed to be age-appropriate and developmentally challenging. Our day consists of both teacher-guided and child-initiated indoor and outdoor activities. Your child will have the opportunity to build relationships and develop appropriate academic and problem-solving skills.

Play Emphasis

Play truly is the work of childhood!  We know that young children are active learners; therefore, we encourage each child to discover the world through hands-on, interactive learning and the richness of open-ended play. Each day our children enter classrooms which have been carefully prepared with “Invitations to Play” which are interesting, challenging, and thought provoking.  We want children to touch and interact with a wide variety of materials and experiences. Each day the children of Marvelously Made leave dirtier, happier, and smarter than they arrived!

 
 

Indoor Classroom

Our Indoor Classrooms are filled with kid-powered materials and lots of opportunities to create, build, and imagine.  Our Art Studio offers children time to work with clay, to tinker, to bead, to create collages, and to use a wide variety of mediums to paint, draw and color.  Other indoor spaces allow children opportunities to build, participate in table games, complete puzzles, and so much more!
 

Outdoor Classroom

Our Outdoor Classrooms reinforce our commitment to providing children with plenty of time in nature.  Whether they are gardening, caring for and enjoying one of our many critters, painting, digging in the sand pit, swinging, watching Story Plays, looking for butterflies and lizards, cooking in the mud kitchen, or sitting for a spell and taking it all in the children are going about the business of childhood and embracing new experiences each day.

 

Child Honoring

In order to meet the unique needs and interests of the children we teach, our curriculum is designed by our own staff with a balanced focus on spiritual development, fine and large motor skills, social skills, emotional intelligence, and self-help skills. Activities are designed to be age-appropriate and developmentally challenging. Our day consists of both teacher-guided and child-initiated indoor and outdoor activities. Your child will have the opportunity to build relationships and develop appropriate academic and problem-solving skills.

Play Emphasis

Play truly is the work of childhood!  We know that young children are active learners; therefore, we encourage each child to discover the world through hands-on, interactive learning and the richness of open-ended play. Each day our children enter classrooms which have been carefully prepared with “Invitations to Play” which are interesting, challenging, and thought provoking.  We want children to touch and interact with a wide variety of materials and experiences. Each day the children of Marvelously Made leave dirtier, happier, and smarter than they arrived!

Indoor Classroom

Our Indoor Classrooms are filled with kid-powered materials and lots of opportunities to create, build, and imagine.  Our Art Studio offers children time to work with clay, to tinker, to bead, to create collages, and to use a wide variety of mediums to paint, draw and color.  Other indoor spaces allow children opportunities to build, participate in table games, complete puzzles, and so much more!
 

Outdoor Classroom

Our Outdoor Classrooms reinforce our commitment to providing children with plenty of time in nature.  Whether they are gardening, caring for and enjoying one of our many critters, painting, digging in the sand pit, swinging, watching Story Plays, looking for butterflies and lizards, cooking in the mud kitchen, or sitting for a spell and taking it all in the children are going about the business of childhood and embracing new experiences each day.

Areas of Focus

Mathematics

Children are naturally mathematical thinkers!  At Marvelously Made children explore math concepts as outlined by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.  Building a solid foundation in number sense and operations is the primary goal in the early childhood years.  We work to help children develop a strong fluidity and flexibility with numbers and a solid sense of what numbers mean.   We also provide the children with learning experiences in geometry, measurement, algebraic thinking, and data analysis and probability. 

Science

Continually questioning and wondering about the world, young children are natural scientists! At Marvelously Made we are very intentional about nurturing this eagerness and enthusiasm for learning through well planned environments and activities which are filled with science possibilities. Each day the children garden, collect bugs, work with sand and water, interact with a variety of animals, mix and blend ingredients, and are encouraged to experiment as we support learning about earth, life, and physical sciences in very real ways. Teachers are nearby to help children expand on their curiosities by asking them questions which promote deeper wonderings and facilitate the connection-building in their minds between their varied explorations.

Critters

 One of our goals is to instill in children a deep understanding of and respect for God’s creatures. Like anything else in the early childhood years the best way to help children genuinely learn is to give them real hands-on experiences. This is why Marvelously Made is home to a wide variety of critters including bunnies, chickens, reptiles, snails, hermit crabs, a hedgehog, aquatic frogs, and more! Through daily interactions with these animals the children are provided opportunities to develop kindness towards them and to begin to grasp the responsibility of caring for them. Some of our critters are for holding and some are just for watching but with each of our animals the children gradually develop the ability to “listen” to them by observing their behavior and they learn to honor the needs of the animal above all. This is a skill that will last a lifetime!

Language

Language development is nurtured through the sharing of age-appropriate stories and poems, fingerplays, songs, story dictations, and other language-play experiences. Children are exposed to letters kinesthetically, visually, and verbally.  Letters are reinforced through playtime activities, crafts, books read during gathering circle, and in other activities throughout the day. Kindergarten and Primary children are individually challenged as they journey through learning reading and language-building skills which are in line with developmental milestones established by the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Art

We know that people were born with an insatiable desire to create.  We also know that within creative experiences all areas of curriculum are intertwined.  Art is a complex combination of science, math, language, motor, sensory, visual, social, and emotional learning.  So the children at Marvelously Made create art every. single. day.  Not crafts (cut out by an adult and meant to produce one cookie-cutter product).  Art!  The children paint, sew, weave, bead, mold clay, watercolor, sculpt, collage, print, and more daily throughout the entire year.