As you know from our recent teasers, we’ve made some exciting enhancements to our Links to Learning curriculum! Whether your child is an infant or getting ready for kindergarten, your family will benefit from these important updates.
Why now? Our curriculum is evaluated on an ongoing basis to ensure we are delivering the rigorous, innovative, and relevant program that your child needs. Links to Learning was created by our Education Team, a group of highly skilled experts not only in the field of early childhood education, but also in elementary and secondary education. This ensures that our curriculum prepares your child for elementary school and beyond. They regularly monitor child development research, national standards, input from our teachers, assessment data, and feedback from you – our wonderful families.
Though we’ve made enhancements, the same three pillars of our curriculum remain – quality instruction, effective implementation, and family communication. Links to Learning will continue to provide your child with the caring, nurturing environment that fosters curiosity, creativity, and a lifelong love of learning.
Below is an overview of the updates you can expect.
- Your child will have even more opportunities to practice social and emotional skills as they move throughout our classrooms. Social-emotional learning has always been a hallmark of our curriculum, as these skills are just as important as foundational academic skills. Because of this, a deeper dive into this component of our curriculum was a priority. We know that the world is always evolving, and we must change with it. Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the social and emotional skills your child needs today are different from what they were even a few years ago. Our classrooms will offer more books and hands-on activities for your child to practice setting goals, problem solving, developing self-confidence, and making friends. As always, our teachers will help your child by modeling appropriate behaviors, giving effective praise, and providing verbal and visual cues.
- Our classrooms will be supplied with more materials to provoke your child’s questions and attitudes about themselves and others as they learn about various family structures, cultures, and traditions. We’ve always been steadfast in our commitment to designing classrooms and teaching strategies that support diversity, inclusion, and belonging. We know that when your child feels emotionally and physically safe, they are more willing to take on challenges and be more comfortable in their learning. You’ll begin to notice items in our classrooms, such as more diverse books, dolls with various skin tones, puzzles and games depicting various cultures, musical instruments from other countries, art from many cultures on the walls, and culturally diverse dramatic play props.
- We’ve enhanced skills throughout our subject areas to further prepare your child for elementary school and beyond. For instance, we’ve integrated more opportunities during the day for your child to strengthen the muscles needed for writing. This includes activities to exercise fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination using safety scissors, tweezers, tongs, and paint brushes. We’ve also adapted a spiralized approach to our Spanish curriculum, meaning that teachers will introduce new vocabulary while reviewing the vocabulary learned in younger classrooms. Your child will have opportunities to practice Spanish during transitions, centers, and even in outdoor learning experiences.
- In addition to the enhancements to the curriculum itself, you may also notice updates to our family communication pieces. We place a premium on making sure you know what skills your child is working on, how they’re progressing, and what they’re loving most. We’ve included a QR code on the letters inserted in your child’s monthly folder so you can see digitally all the skills and goals your child achieved that month. Continuing the learning at home is now even easier with our refreshed Baby Sign Language poster, Spanish posters, and activity letters. Our Links 2 Home app and Family Reports have also been updated to give teachers space to showcase how your child is practicing social-emotional skills and the progress they are making.
As always, thank you for allowing us to be part of your child’s educational journey. We are thrilled to implement these enhancements into our classrooms. Please contact us if you have any questions.
