Hilltop’s Approach
Our approach to early childhood education is an interconnected web of practices anchored by our understanding of children as curious, eager to explore and learn, competent and resourceful, ready to collaborate, and full of wonder and delight. As you read about our approach, you’ll find ideas and practices explored from different perspectives, creating a richly textured, vibrant fabric of threads that, together, give expression to our approach to early childhood education within the context of full-day child care.
The goals we have for children’s experiences at Hilltop are reflected in the day’s flow and emphasis. We want children’s time here to be characterized by:
- long, uninterrupted work time, in which children’s passions, questions, understandings, and experiences serve as the foundation for their work;
- opportunities for children to use many media to represent their thinking and feelings;
- opportunities for children to get messy and dive into sensory exploration;
- time, space, and supplies for children to transform materials, making, shaping, taking apart, recreating;
- many opportunities and substantial adult support for children to practice resolving conflicts with each other, working through problems to reach satisfying solutions that promote continued play together;
- adults moving with respect and quiet gentleness in the rooms, acknowledging with our voices, our movements, and our demeanor that the rooms are the children’s workspaces, dreaming spaces, feeling spaces, living spaces, and we are there to listen and to support and to listen again.