Program Overview
Susan's Garden's program focuses on the development of the whole child, in an informal setting, providing experiences and activities that meet the special learning needs of children from ages 2 to 5 years. This program encourages healthy emotional, intellectual, physical, and social development. The objective of this program is to help expand a child's ability to learn about the world, organize information, and think. The aim is to strengthen your child's feelings of self-worth, their interest in challenging tasks, and their ability to work with other people. Great importance is placed on developing self-confidence and encouraging social interaction.
The children are regarded as active solvers of problems. Children are naturally motivated to satisfy their curiosity and master challenging tasks. The function of a care giver is to arrange the environment so that it provides safe, suitable challenges in a group setting.
Children will be encouraged to participate in age appropriate household routines such as preparing food, setting tables and cleaning up. There will be activities, both indoors and out.
A balance of active and quiet play will be provided. Common activities include: sensorimotor toys and stimulation games for toddlers, reading books, singing, dancing, building with blocks and manipulatives, puzzles, games, dress up and fantasy play, creative arts (painting, drawing, collage, clay, crafts), cooking, music, sand and water play, and gardening.
Susan's background as a teacher has been in the arts. Susan has taught the Oak Park Summer Cultural Arts Workshop, After School Arts Program for the Oak Park Park District; Art Start and Young Artist Workshop for District 97. She has taught children and adults for The Oak Park Art League. Susan has a bachelor's degree in Art History from Southern Illinois University. The summer of 2009, Susan became an adult juror for the Chicago International Children's Film Festival.
Influential Early Childhood Educators
Jean Piaget (1896-1980) a Swiss psychologist, who promoted the belief that children are not empty vessels to be filled with knowledge but active builders of knowledge — little scientists who are constantly creating and testing their own theories of the world. Through research he found that very young children’s thought processes had their own kind of order and their own special logic.
Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852) is known as the "father of the modern day kindergarten." He saw the family as the root of education, and believed that children are inherently filled with curiosity and energy. An important aspect of his educational philosophy was self-initiation and control by the child, which he saw as important for progress. He brought nature into early childhood education, largely based on his own experiences of observing nature as a child. Self-initiation is built into the program at Susan’s Garden; children choose their own activities and enjoy appropriate independence. Nature is frequently included in the planned activities of our curriculum. Children are always encouraged to notice things when they are outside or just looking out the windows.
Froebel's philosophy of education rested on four basic ideas: free self expression, creativity, social participation, and motor expression.
Maria Montessori (1870 - 1952) an Italian pediatrician, is given credit for the idea of "developmentally appropriate" education. She was one of the first who realized that there are windows of opportunity when children are particularly receptive to certain types of learning and advancement in their own development. Children learn the purpose or function of different objects in the real world and are taught many practical and self-help skills. With two-year-olds, for example, there is a window of opportunity with regard to the tremendous growth of language skills, and the maturing of a child's sense of self, independence, and relationship with others, both adults and children.
Rudolf Steiner (1861 - 1925) is the founder of the Waldorf School movement. He wrote extensively about the "essence" that each child has, and was one of the first who encouraged teaching to strengths.
This puts emphasis on the positive, and allowing children to develop along their individual pathways, with many ways to be successful in their own right. Typically a Steiner inspired school will offer many natural objects for children to play with, and seek to create a homelike atmosphere.