Our curriculum objectives for learning and development are divided into nine areas of child growth and development. The first four describe major areas of child growth and development: social-emotional, physical, language and cognitive. The other five areas are described as outcomes in early learning standards; Literacy, Mathematics, Science and Technology, Social Studies, and The Arts. Attention is given to the different needs, interests and developmental levels of the individual children and each child’s family and community cultures when planning curriculum.
Areas of Development and Learning:
- Social-Emotional Development
Young children’s social-emotional development involves learning how to understand their own and other’s feelings, regulate and express their emotions appropriately, build relationships with others, and interact in groups.
- Physical Development
Physical development includes children’s gross (large muscle) and fine (small muscle) motor skills. Balance; coordination; and locomotion, or traveling, are part of gross-motor development. Grabbing an object; picking up a small object; cutting; drawing; and writing, are part of fine-motor development.
- Language Development
Language is the principal tool for establishing and maintaining relationships with adults and other children. Children’s desire to communicate their thoughts, ideas, needs, and feelings with others motivates them to develop language. Language also involves learning about the structure and sequence of speech sounds, vocabulary, grammar, and the rules for engaging in appropriate and effective conversation.
- Cognitive Development
Cognitive development, also called intellectual development, is influenced by the child’s approaches to learning as well as his or her biological makeup and the environment. Cognitive skills include information processing, memory, classification, problem solving, language acquisition, and reading and mathematics learning.
Outcome Areas in Early Learning Standards:
- Literacy Development
- Mathematics Development
- Science and Technology Development
- Social Studies Development
- The Arts
Trinity Day School 