Toddlers are Terrific!

By Carolyn Young, Director of Kids Count Child Care

Have you ever heard the expression, “the terrible twos”? At Kids Count Child Care, we prefer to think of two-year-old children as terrific, not terrible!

Each morning, as children enter the Toddler Group, they receive a warm greeting from Rachel Miller and Candice Iszard, the primary staff responsible for the care and education of our toddlers. Yes, you read correctly, we not only care for children, we also educate them.

At Kids Count, we view and treat each child as an individual. Our classroom is a home-like environment, where we help children separate from their parents, hug and hold children on our laps, and support them as they gain skills and confidence in independently toileting, dressing, and participating in mealtimes. Our toddlers engage in activities throughout the day that support gross and fine motor development and stimulate their language.

Simultaneously, we utilize a curriculum (The Creative Curriculum for Infants, Toddlers and Twos), incorporate the New Jersey Birth to Three Early Learning Standards, create goals for each child, document each child’s progress in portfolios, provide developmental screenings, and conduct quarterly assessments, all while having FUN!

The Kids Count toddlers’ daily schedule includes: breakfast, choice play, morning snack, read-aloud, music, indoor curriculum experiences, outdoor curriculum experiences, lunch, nap time, choice play/art/sensory activities, read-aloud, music and movement, afternoon snack, playground/learning park and read-aloud. Specials include language stimulation group, led by a Speech and Language Pathologist, and music with the PGCS music teacher.

To be a toddler at Kids Count Child Care is to be safe, loved, nurtured, guided, supported, encouraged, valued, educated, and thought of as terrific!!