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HCDC's Curriculum Philosophy

We believe the best way to teach children is by providing them with a Christ-based developmentally-appropriate learning environment. Therefore, all activities will be of Christian character and child-oriented with subtle teacher direction. That is why you will not see many, if any, work sheets at our center.

We will supply lots of developmentally-appropriate learning centers and activities for your child to develop cognitively, physically, spiritually, and emotionally/socially. Your child is offered the opportunity for hands-on learning in special areas such as...

• art,
• language,
• dramatic play
• math,
• science/discovery,
• cultural diversity,
• Spanish
• sign language, and
• music.

Special themes,developmental checklists, and age-group Scope & Sequence rubrix enable the teachers to prepare lesson plans that are tailored to the needs and development of the children. This is another way we make sure all areas of your child's development are covered. Weekly lesson plans, calendars, and daily schedules will be posted on the parent bulletin board in each classroom.

Tools such as daily forms (younger classes), weekly reports, and monthly calendars are sent home to help keep you informed. Our center's monthy E-newsletter, Applesauce Times, will be sent out each month as another point of communication. This is a good source of information for center-wide activities.

A variety of tools are pulled from to provide a well-rounded curriculum. Our Executive Director is a doctorate of Education student and has written many of our curriculum materials based on current educational research. "Useful Seussful, Preschool Reading School" and "Appleseed Bible" are two of her new curriculum publications.  "Wee Learn", "Math 123 ", and "The Apple Seed Science " are a few of the wonderful outside materials that we use. Saxon Math K and "Appleseed Phonics" are used in the Pre-K5 classes to prepare them for Harvest Christian Academy's Kindergarten. HCDC has been very successful at preparing our students for the challenges of private school.

HCDC teaches our children about Jesus and the Word of God. We use the following four Christian curriculums for the basis of our Bible units and Chapel time:

• Infants - "Baby Beginnings" by Gospel Light
• Tots - "Boz" by David C. Cook Publishing
• PreK - "Appleseed Bible " by Kristi Martin, M.Ed.
• Summer Day Camp - "Flipt" by Willowcreek

These programs are designed to meet all different learning styles and the attention spans of the age group that they target.

To encourage further exploration of enrichment units, field trips are planned for our PreK 5 and School-age classes. HCDC also accesses the community for opportunities to bring in volunteers or special programs to supplement our educational units. Small fees might result to support such opportunities. Our school-age programs have field trips sporadically during the school year and features many field trips during the summer. Children must be four years of age and fully potty trained to go on field trips despite the class they are assigned to.