Early Childhood > Goals

PROGRAM GOALS

 Program Goals

 
1. The Pic River Children and Family Learning Centre Program will promote the holistic development and well being of children in the community of Pic River First Nation.
 
2. The Pic River Children and Family Learning Centre Program will provide a community based program that will address the concerns of children and their families.
 
3. The Pic River Children and Family Learning Centre Program will empower and encourage parents and/or caregivers as primary teachers and caregivers to provide traditional and cultural parenting to their children.
 
4. The Pic River Children and Family Learning Centre Program will support the spiritual, emotional, intellectual and physical growth of each child in a cultural and educational learning environment.
 
5. The Pic River Children and Family Learning Centre Program will provide, promote and support parent and caregiver involvement in all aspects of the program.
 
6. The Pic River Children and Family Learning Centre will understand the unique dimensions of Native children, families and the community.
 
7. The Pic River Children and Family Learning Centre will foster an appreciation of First Nations language, culture and identity.
 
8. The Pic River Children and Family Learning Centre will incorporate Native content in programming.
 

9. The Pic River Children and Family Learning Centre will link with community resources.

A PLACE IN THE COMMUNITY

 Place of the Pic River Children and Family Learning Centre in the Community

 
1.      Support of economic participation is only one purpose of the Children and Family Learning Centre in the Native community.
2.      Children and Family Learning Centre is a service to the Native community and its purposes, not just a child service or a place of employment.

The Native Family has suffered many assaults historically. Native childcare shares responsibility, long with other community resources, to promote healing of children, and families. This will be done in concert with parents and other services, not as a separate initiative.

OVERALL GOALS

 Overall Child Related Goals

 
The goals we strive to obtain with each child entering our centre are;
 
1.      TRUST: To develop a trusting relationship with the child.
2.      SELF-ESTEEM – SELF-IDENTITY: To help the child to create a healthy positive image of him/herself.
3.      SELF DISCIPLINE – EMOTIONAL CONTROL: To help the child develop positive ways to express his/her emotions.
4.      LEARNING SKILLS: To provide opportunities for the child to develop his/her learning skills. Learning skills include the following concepts: listening, sharing, co-operating, observing, and concentrating. Language skills and the ability to make decisions also come under this section. Acquiring good learning skills is a necessity in order to enable a child to progress with greater ease in the Academic area.
5.      PRE-ACADEMIC LEARNING: Involves preparing the child for the area of academic learning. In this area, we work with fine muscle development; i.e. using scissors, holding a pencil and drawing. We will also introduce basic concepts such as shapes, letters, numbers, opposites and serration.
6.      ACADEMIC LEARNING: Involves “the three R’s” –reading, writing and arithmetic as well as other academic material.
 
To accomplish our goals we use sensory involvement experiences. Each day a child participates in a number of activities which include circle time, arts and crafts, sand play, and water play, indoor and outdoor play. As part of our native culture program, we will incorporate native Language and culture into each of the above activities.
 
The environment is setup to encourage all areas of a child’s development and to stimulate progress in all of our steps. Each child progresses individually therefore opportunities to develop different abilities are present through the day. Each step has an importance and once accomplished makes the next area that much easier to successfully complete. Trust is very important and must be developed to make the centre a warm, pleasant experience. Feeling good about oneself is important in enabling a child to feel that other individuals must be respected and appreciated. This leads to self-discipline and emotional control, especially when a difficulty arises with another child or another individual’s progress. Learning skills are essential for being able to concentrate on the next steps of pre-academic and academic abilities. All the steps relate to each other. To have small “tastes” of each area daily does not hinder. It helps to make each familiar and that much easier to be accomplished.
 
Our goal in providing a warm, safe, home-like environment which will encourage all individuals to progress in each area within his/her own time; to help children over stumbling blocks which may hinder development; and to provide sensory involvement activities to make growing and learning a fun experience in life.

PLAY

 PLAY

Through play, children learn what no one can teach them. Play is a very important part of our program. It provides children with an opportunity to pursue skills creatively and constructively in all areas of development; socially, emotionally, intellectually and physically. The concepts of trust, self-identity, and self-control, learning skills, pre-academic learning and academic learning are all accomplished through children’s play.
 
The staff’s role is to create an environment which stimulates play; an environment in which a child can learn. The staff is available to supervise closely and give assistance or guidance when necessary. Extending learning through clarification of concepts is critical at this time.
 
The area of creativity can be one the most effective and important avenues of expression a child can use. Some children do not feel the need to express themselves through art work; instead enjoy building, assembling, imaginative play, music or language. The mastery of skills in these experiences provides the most valuable learning.