To fulfill our philosophy, The Dick Howser Center has adopted the Beyond Centers and Circle Time (BCCT) curriculum. This curriculum embraces sound research and theory. The BCCT emphasizes the role of the child, the teacher (or caregiver), the family and the community. No one piece is more important than the other.

How We Teach

Beyond Centers and Circle Time is a play-based curriculum designed to provide caregivers with explicit ideas for creating loving, playful, and stimulating experiences for young children age birth through kindergarten. BCCT focuses on the intensity and density of well-planned, organized, and scaffolded play experiences. This curriculum clearly defines the stages of children’s play behaviors and product creation during construction, sensorimotor, and dramatic play experiences allowing adults working with young children to assess and scaffold childrens development. The research and longitudinal follow-up supporting this curriculum has shown that when children successfully master the stages of play they are developmentally guided toward success in reading, writing, and math skills.

Our program is a support system for children and their families. Staff are carefully selected based on education, training and experience, and classrooms are individually planned to meet the unique needs of each child. Classrooms provide a multitude of play opportunities through which each child is guided towards his/her optimal developmental level. We use the Beyond Centers and Circle Time curriculum, which is play-based and designed to provide a loving, playful, and stimulating environment. Play environments are organized into centers which are designed, equipped, and arranged to promote the child’s development through sensorimotor, dramatic, fluid/messy play and structured construction play experiences.

Staff are focused on each child’s development of self-esteem and personal independence. Children are encouraged to make choices, think independently, and to build trusting, cooperative relationships with peers and teachers through an environment that is child initiated, child-directed and teacher- scaffolded.

Themes & Units

Big School Experiences

August/September: Beginning the Year

Focus: Making friends, learning school rules, getting to know my teachers, being a good friend and special sounds at school.

September /October: Balls

Focus: How balls move, different types of balls and the beople who use them, what are balls made from.

November/December: Clothes

Focus: Exploring clothing, taking care of clothes, how are clothes made, where do we got our clothes, special clothes for work.

January/February: Buildings

Focus: Buildings in our neighborhood, who builds buildings, what are buildings made of, what’s special about our building, what happens inside buildings.

February/March: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Focus: What do people throw away, where does trash go, how do trash and garbage affect our community, can we reuse junk, can we create less trash

April/May: Trees

Focus: trees in my community, food from trees, who takes care of trees, how do trees change, what can we do with parts of trees.