C5 Philosophy
Our mission is to facilitate young children's optimal development and learning in a safe, supportive, and enriched environment.
Our primary goal is to provide and continuously improve child development and education services of the highest quality in a climate of care and respect for children and their families. We offer a program that places an emphasis on developing strong relationships between children, staff members, parents, and families.
Our staff facilitates individual and group development by providing stimulating learning experiences and environments that foster physical growth, emotional well-being, social relationships, creativity, and intellectual development.
The daily activities are guided by qualified teachers and are carefully coordinated to be appropriate for each child's age and developmental levels. The infants and toddlers receive concentrated nurturing and care combined with daily attention to individual and small group activities that focus on sensory, physical, emotional, social, and cognitive development. The older toddlers and preschool children experience a blend of arts, crafts, dance, music, storytelling, dramatic play, language development, math, science, photography, and exploring the city environment and Nature.
Sensitivities, skills, insights, and knowledge are built from children's marvelous ability to continually pursue their individual interests and to creatively explore and express themselves. Both centers are equipped with a wide variety of learning materials and play equipment that support all areas of your child's development.
We invite all children, parents, and staff to apply, regardless of their gender, race, color, religion, creed, sexual orientation, nationality, or ethnic origin. According to our organization's charter, we give priority to enrolling children of California State Employees.
We practice an approach that is inspired in part by the infant-toddler and preschool programs in Reggio Emilia, Italy, and we rely in part on the offerings of the Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and Development, now called WestEd. In addition, there are many outstanding methods, models, individuals, and concepts that influence our program and our staff in their work.A few are derived from comprehensive theory and proven practices that help children to build skills, knowledge, and attitudes by means of: Partnership with Children, where teachers are primarily children’s gentle, caring, and skillful partners in guiding learning and development; Resources for Infant Educarers (RIE) methods, developed by the late Magda Gerber; and, Community of Learners, that enables effective group process, individual children being skillful group members, and learning groups becoming powerful learning teams.
Our program emphasizes building strong interpersonal relationships and views all children as competent, creative, and powerful beings. Our methods and activities result in comprehensive learning. Our teaching strategies reinforce an emergent curriculum with a rich materials environment, varied groupings of children, and enhanced individual learning for every child. Your child will have access to many resources in their classroom, Center, building, and throughout the program and surrounding community.
In all aspects of our organization, we maintain the characteristics of continuously learning and improving; where the atmosphere is joyful, exciting, caring, aesthetic, compelling, and rich with creativity, surprises, and the promise of great potential.
When your child is enrolled in the program, they are assigned to a primary teacher and a small learning group. Your child's primary teacher is also part of a teaching team that works with your child and others in your child's age group. The other team members will some times work with your child in place of the primary teacher. The children also regularly mix with other groups to augment their learning and development. Most children develop and learn best when they socialize and learn with their peers and adults in addition to their parents and other family members.
In addition, your child's designated primary teacher and age group teaching team are part of a larger Center and Program-wide teaching and child development team. It includes many people on staff and some people who are outside resources to the program. These people include individuals, such as lead teachers; Center Directors; the program's Executive Director; consultants and specialists in child development and education; various support staff at the Centers; and, parents and other volunteers who contribute to the program.
Our program provides a continuous and seamless progression of learning, child development, and nurturing for your child from their infancy through their toddler ages and preschool years to their entry into kindergarten. There is a carefully thought-out and facilitated transition between each age group.
We make every effort to provide a comprehensive and exemplary program for you and your child during her or his earliest years.
