Emergent Curriculum at York
When choosing a school, it is paramount to consider the curriculum and how it aligns with your expectations regarding your child’s education and development.
At York, we draw from a variety of early childhood philosophies, developmentally appropriate practices, and current research to create an emergent curriculum that meets the needs of each child. Emergent curriculum at York has similar pedagogical foundations as that of Reggio-inspired curriculums, which center on three core principles.
The child’s environment
The child as a competent individual
The importance of collaboration and social interactions as a part of education and learning
Though many Upper East Side preschools utilize Reggio-inspired and emergent curriculum, the strength of our program comes from our teachers’ and directors’ ability to understand each child and create an environment that allows them to flourish.
Teachers at York Avenue Day School
York teachers are highly qualified in child development, knowing the many key milestones that children must meet at each stage of development. Many of our teachers also hold advanced degrees in early childhood education and related fields.
To create a truly emergent curriculum, teachers begin by building strong relationships with each child, learning their interests, abilities, and unique needs. With this information, they create and implement a blend of teacher directed as well as child initiated experiences to address children’s social, emotional, and academic skills. Teachers also understand that any moment can be a moment for learning. They listen and observe throughout the school day, choosing the opportune time to introduce or build on children’s knowledge and skills.
We understand that implementing such an approach is no easy undertaking. Teachers are trained, mentored, and guided by our education directors, all of which have theoretical and practical knowledge and experience with emergent curriculum in early childhood classrooms. They engage in formal professional development monthly in addition to weekly collaborative meetings with directors. We utilize the expertise of our educational directors as well as outside professionals in emergent curriculum, child development, etc. to further develop our teachers practice.
From the Classrooms
The following anecdotes from an infant class and a threes class offer a glimpse of the work that goes on with teachers and children each day at York Avenue. They portray how emergent curriculum is implemented across ages.
Infants
While playing on the carpet, Ms. Jamie observed a child rolling a small, spikey ball over the floor, her feet and hands, feeling the texture. Ms. Jamie entered into the play with her, having a back and forth interaction of rolling the ball on her belly, hand, feet and arms. The child was greatly amused, showing her enjoyment with cooing sounds and smiles. The child then grabbed Ms. Jamie’s hand, and rolled the ball across her palm, smiling and making eye contact as the teacher used words such as “ooo, that feels bumpy.”
In this interaction, Jamie:
Modeled language
Facilitated a back and forth – the foundation for conversational language
Increased vocabulary
This example highlights how small moments can be used to expand a child’s understanding and build further connections.
Threes
During snack time, Ms. Emma played different genres of music for the children. The children began discussing the similarities and differences they heard, making connections to the music they learned about in Music class. Ms. Emma and the other teachers noticed the children were extremely engaged and excited about all the different selections of music. This inspired them to create a unit on all different types of music. They focused on a different genre each week, including classical, jazz, and rock. The final project culminated in a music video directed, shot, performed, and edited by the students. Their exploration of music then led them to their next unit on Space after being inspired by David Bowie’s Space Oddity.
In this example, Ms. Emma, used the children’s interest in differing music genres to expand and build on their content knowledge as well as their social and emotional skills. Being able to work together to form a band and create a music video takes great skills in communication, collaboration, and compromise. The teachers used the children’s organic response to music to:
Widen their understanding of the subject
Increase vocabulary
Expand their creativity
Develop higher level thinking and processing skills to utilize towards many academic subjects