How many adults remember being outdoors with nothing more than a friend, a bike and a tree, creating a beautiful castle, or scary pirate ship? You could play for hours and hours and return the next day to the same place in your mind. Unfortunately for children today, imaginative play has been replaced by computers, tablets, phones, and toys that leave no room for imagination. However, we are technology free here at Creative Minds! We prefer children spend their time imaginating, creating, socializing and problem solving. In our program, children will be given the opportunity to take their play in the direction their minds take them. In most other schools, the blocks stay in the block area, the food stays in the kitchen area, etc. If our children desire to build a house for their dolls with the blocks, or they desire to turn the entire classroom into a museum or aquarium, then with the teacher’s guidance and support, it will happen. When the ideas are actively formed by young minds, natural “out of the box” thinking is cultivated and positively reinforced. Our students have large periods of time daily in which they will participate in activities that focus on creating and exploring the environment around them. This sets the foundation for a love of learning and success socially, emotionally and academically. We have taken the best of many child development philosophies and melded the concepts together to provide experiences that ignite the inner creativity of every child and encourages all children to reach their highest potential.
At Creative Minds we empower our students to think outside of the box while still keeping the consistency of a daily and weekly schedule. Having some predictability throughout the day and week provide children with the comfort of knowing what is coming next. Within the day alternating times are spent in teacher directed group activities and child directed free time. Ample time is always given for our students to play freely with minimal interruptions. Teachers play an active role in this process by supporting the children and engaging with them in order to be a model for imagination, creativity, socialization and language. This over time nurtures the concentration and deep thought process, which is a rudimentary trait needed for a successful school experience One of the biggest complaints from school teachers today is the lack of focus and attention skills their students exhibit. By developing independent thinking and ability to attend to a task for long periods of time, Creative Minds students will be ready for elementary school. And because our approach is based on research and best practices for a developing mind, our graduates will be less likely to struggle in the years to come.
Not only are the children given the opportunity to create, imagine and learn at their own pace, but they also get high exposure to music, arts, healthy foods and physical play. On a daily basis, we provide organic milk, fresh fruits and vegetables and unprocessed homemade lunches. Our students do yoga daily, have extensive time outdoors and open ended art materials are always available to ignite their creativity. And to top it off we have weekly cooking and gardening activities as well as weekly professional music, dance and art classes provided at no extra cost!
Creative Minds main focus is to develop the whole child- heart, hands and head! We strive to create morally responsible citizens who think outside the box, love one another, use creativity, appreciate the arts and are intrinsically motivated life long learners! If this sounds like the qualities that your family values, then Creative Minds is the place for you! We look forward to working with your family soon!