Twin Oaks Child Development Center

Preschool Perspective

Our preschool classroom is multi-age. That means it serves children between the ages of 3 and 5 years.  The last six-months our classroom has served a large number of older 4s and 5s.  We’re beginning to say fare-well to these kiddos as they get ready for kindergarten.  Miss Kimberly, along all those who’ve helped in the room this year, have really prepared our children for kindergarten success.  They understand what it means to be FRIENDLY, to be GOOD WORKERS, and how to be SAFE.  We’re going to miss them all, but we’re excited for the fall and the new chapter…

Our new chapter will involve many younger children. We will be welcoming five of our toddlers to the preschool classroom by the end of September.  It will be our pleasure to help these younger ones learn through play, and to eventually prepare them for kindergarten success.

Just as an aside, when we opened our center in March of 2009, we had two baby boys. Those two baby boys have become toddlers, and in September, they’re among those who will enter our preschool class.  It’s mind-blowing how fast the time has flown by!

We hope to add just a few more friends to our preschool class in the fall. We’re specifically looking for some older 4 year-olds to help keep the balance in our multi-age classroom.

Toddler Talk

Our toddler room has been abuzz with activity this summer.  As our two year-olds have “grown-up,” they have enjoyed longer periods of outside play, as well more teacher-led circle times, and table activities.  Potty-training and problem-solving are also constantly in the forefront in this classroom.

As many older two’s move to preschool as they approach their third birthdays, we will welcome some friends from the infant room.  This is a summer filled with lots of transition.  We work to make the transitions smooth by allowing the older infants to visit the toddler room to get to know the teachers, kids, and room environment.  This allows us to look toward the room transitions with anticipation and excitement!

We are forecasting two full-time openings in the toddler room in the fall.  If you’re interested, or know someone who might be interested, please feel free to call.

Baby Babble

Our infant classroom has been rather quiet thus far this summer!  We are waiting for some new friends to start in August and September.  This “quiet” (so to speak) season has allowed our teachers to brainstorm ideas for the fall, form relationships with the children, and individualize the care for the different ages and personalities (between 4 months and 22 months).

In the fall, our infant room will be running at capacity, serving about 4 young infants, and 4 older infants (1 year – 23 months). Serving the wide-range does present some challenges, but our teachers well-equipped to meet those challenges to ensure that every child’s needs are addressed, every child develops his or voice, and every child gets kind words and connection with the teachers and caregivers.

We are always willing to add names to our waiting list for the infant room, but at this time, we forecast part-time openings  possibly in January 2012, and the soonest full-time opening will be in April 2012.

Twin Oaks Child Development Center is a wonderful place for learning and growing!  Our kids are learning through play in developmentally-appropriate classrooms while their parents are busy working or studying.

As a center, one of our themes has been: CONNECTING

This year, we’ve CONNECTED with several awesome enrichment programs: Keys to Life Music School’s “Seeds of Harmony” music classes as well as monthly story times with volunteers from Cedar Mill Library, TumbleBus classes, and interactive “Learning Circle” trainings led by the Childcare Resource and Referral agency.

We’ve CONNECTED with experts to assist our children in need of a little extra support. They have been receiving services from Northwest Regional ESD here at our site.  This is a convenience for our working parents, and it also allows our teachers to tap into the knowledge of the Speech Language Pathologists and Behavior Specialists we’ve met.

We CONNECTED with parents and allowed them to connect with each other at our first ever Parent Open House in April.  Our toddler and preschool teachers unveiled the portfolios that we have been compiling to showcase the children’s work samples and their growth over time.

We’re partnering with parents, experts and other community agencies to maximize the learning and growth opportunities for all the children in our care!

Good things are happening and we’re moving into our summer season with excitement. We look forward to CONNECTING with new families!

Two friends build sharing skills in the infant room!

Toddlers build fine motor skills and color recognition through art!

Parachute Play Is Fun Under the Early Spring sun

Local school districts have chosen to close their facilities due to current weather, and due to the forecast continuing to call for snow throughout the morning. We are following suit.  HAPPY SNOW DAY!  Please check our website by 6am tomorrow to see if we will be closed, or if we will reopen as usual.

2011 is here and Twin Oaks and a lot of great things are happening!

Teachers in all three of our classrooms are working hard to implement our three rules: be safe, be friendly, and be a worker.  As we continue to use the language consistently, and reinforce those positive behaviors, we are finding that are classrooms are engaging places where teachers can devote most of their time and energy to teaching and learning, instead of managing behavior.

One of our goals, as a staff, for 2011 is to partner with our families more.  Classroom teams are developing strategies, like parent communication boards, for helping to keep parents in the loop.  We’re also starting to incorporate more deliberate documentation and portfolios.  We’re capturing work samples in portfolios as the children move through our program, so we can see their growth over time.

ALL three of our classrooms are participating in Book Share from Cedar Mill Library.

What does this entail? Two Things:

1) Book boxes are delivered for each classroom every month, allowing us to expose our kiddos to more great children’s literature than what we have in our classroom collections.

2) We have volunteers from the library who come in once a month to lead interactive story-times.

Preschoolers and Toddlers Continue to Enjoy the TumbleBus, which visits us on the 1st and 3rd Fridays every month.  Isaac Endicott has owned the TumbleBus for 14 years and he works very well with our children and their teachers to ensure the kids are safe, while they have fun aboard the bus.

Preschoolers and Toddlers are enjoying 4 weeks of music classes on Thursday mornings. Sara Meier, owner of Keys to Life music school, brings daughter Leora and her acoustic guitar, to lead our kids through 50-minutes of high-energy, interactive songs and activities.

We dodged most of the snow, but unfortunately the ice has hit! We are delaying our opening until 10am today.

Please stay safe. Thank you.

11/21/2010

Twin Oaks will remain open as long as enough staff can safely report to work to be within state-required ratios. If said ratios cannot be met, our facilities will delay opening, close early, or close all-together at Operator/Director discretion.

With a forecasted winter storm in the next few days, please visit the website each morning for specific information.

Currently, we plan to be open as usual on Monday, November 22nd.

If road conditions are hazardous in the early morning, we may delay opening by 2 hours to allow the sun rise.  If snow does hit mid-day, we may call parents to request children be picked up early to ensure the safety of both our children and staff members. We must consider the safety of both staff and children as our highest priority.

Last June, we opened our toddler classroom. That was our last classroom to open.  A year later, how are we doing?

We’re doing well!

Our infant room continues to run at capacity with several families on a waiting list.  Currently, the population in the room is between 12 weeks and 22 months, though we are licensed for infants as young as 6 weeks.

Our toddler classroom is a little lean now because our toddlers graduated into preschoolers, so please contact us if you’re looking for care for a 24 – 35 month old.

Our preschool room has seen huge growth.  Last summer, a busy day in preschool was 4 kids.  This summer, an average day in preschool is 8 kids, and  a busy day is 11 or more.  We’re able to enroll more preschoolers also, so please contact us if you’re interested. We welcome full-time and flexible part-time enrollment

Our big project for this summer is going to be the installation of our outdoor play area.  We’ve set a goal to have an area fenced off and ready for outdoor fun by the end of August. We’ll be sure to keep you posted.

As 2010 comes to a close, there will be some adjustments to our tuition rates. These adjustments will not affect current families, so contact us soon to lock-in your rates!

We’ve had a busy summer at Twin Oaks CDC!  Two of our infants have become very skilled walkers and sometimes our whole room shares a nap time.  Our toddlers have been learning about colors.  In preschool, we’ve been talking about animals.  We made our own zoo map and wrote a story together about the zoo.

We are having fun learning and growing together.  We have room in our toddler class and preschool class for more friends, and invite you to join us!

Toddler Art Board

It’s been a while since we posted a blog with any updates.  We want to let you know that we are officially open, and Certified!  We are accepting enrollment for toddlers and preschoolers: ages 24 months – 5 years.  Our infant room is not currently enrolling.

We are developing a great team of staff, with a shared goal of providing excellence in childcare.  We believe that the children in our care are thriving, and their parents have peace of mind while they are away at work or school.

The next and final chapter for our first year of operation is the installation of our outdoor play area. We will be fencing off a portion of our front yard, with two shade trees, and a piece of blacktop as a trike track.  We’re hoping to get this done while the weather is nice this summer!

Note: Photos used with parent consent.

Our half-day preschool classroom is officially now open! I am so excited to get started and the room looks great!

Our lobby is looking very nice also. A couple men from the church built beautiful cubbies! They really did a great job, and it was a huge savings to have them built instead of purchased. We were also able to get a nice, comfy couch for our reception area. My goal is to keep our reception area/lobby as “homey” as possible to ease the transition from home to school for our little guys and their parents.

Below are some photos of our classroom, now that it is finished!
If you’re interested in seeing it in person, or visiting us for a free trial day, please call or email us today!