The Toddler Program at The Hebrew Academy is a nurturing and stimulating program that is designed to aid in the child’s process of development. It responds to the needs of the child in each stage, Children thrive in an environment that provides modeling behavior for children, space for movement, and hands-on learning materials.
The curriculum for the Toddler Program focuses learning on the following areas:
Language Development:
- Knows first name.
- Uses words to express wants.
- Names familiar people and pets.
- Uses pronouns “me” and “my.”
- Names pictures in a picture book.
- Points to parts on a doll’s body.
- Makes two or three word sentences.
- Complies with simple commands.
- Identifies relations of family’s members.
- Starts to express emerging independence.
- Sings songs and rhymes.
Social Development:
- Shows affection.
- Occupies self.
- Initiates own play activities.
- Begins to learn to take turns with other children.
- Begins playing in small social groups.
Visual and Auditory Development:
- Sits and listens to nursery rhymes or short stories.
- Marches with musical instruments in line or circle.
- Listens and responds to songs.
- Looks in mirrors and identifies facial features.
Cognitive Development:
- Identifies some primary and secondary colors.
- Identifies shapes and sorts by shapes and color.
- Counts up to 3.
- Aware of “one more.”
- Knows “how many” to three.
- Knows some basic geometric shapes.
- Completes puzzles – more than 4 pieces.
- Recalls objects (i.e. memory games).
- Identifies different textures (i.e. soft, hard, rough).
- Starts to learn positional concepts: up, down, inside, outside, in front of, in back of, etc.
Movement – Gross Motor:
- Walks backwards.
- Climbs.
- Walks up steps.
- Kicks ball forward.
- Throws ball forward.
- Thrown ball overhand.
- Rolls ball.
- Pushes objects around (i.e. cart, wagon).
- Skips.
- Jumps.
- Dances.
Movement – Fine Motor:
- Holds objects correctly (crayons, markers, and paint brush).
- Stacks blocks three high.
- Unwraps objects.
- Takes simple objects apart.
- Unfastens clothing.
- Learns to turn pages of book correctly.
- Plays with clay (pinches and rolls clay).
- Finger plays
Social Development: