Infant/Toddler

We believe in building strong partnerships with our families for optimal care of infants and toddlers. Each unique family has a child with individual and varying temperaments, rates of development and interests. We see young children as curious, motivated learners who are also dependent upon adults for nurturance, support and guidance. They need to be both respected as learners and protected in their vulnerability. At our agency, we work intently to strike that delicate balance.

Our Program

Our infant/toddler programs implement the philosophical approach of West Ed’s Program for Infant Toddler Care (PITC).This philosophically sound and research based approach provides us with a framework of quality care for how children grow and develop over time. In addition, the framework guides the quality of care we provide in our infant/toddler programs through our primary care teachers, individualized care, small intimate groups, and continuity of care until age 3 years, cultural continuity between the center and family and inclusion of children with varying needs.

Individualized Care Routines

Each child will have his/her own primary care teacher who learns about children’s unique needs such as feeding, toileting, napping and who responds to your child through each stage of learning and development. Our care teachers adapt to your child’s particular pace, cues, needs schedule, rhythms and styles until the child is at least 3 years of age. Working in these small, intimate groups of 3-4 infants or 4-6 toddlers gives us the opportunity to support relationship building and to encourage individual choice, problem solving, and discoveries in the process of learning.   Each care teacher comes to know each family’s distinct preferences and concerns in caring for their individual child. This provides us the opportunity to bridge the connection between your home care routines and culture with our center care allowing for continuity and seamless transitions.

Our Staff & Environment

Our nurturing and educated care teachers plan and prepare a learning environment which fosters children’s initiative, active exploration with materials and engagement with other children and care teachers. Our environment offers opportunities for children to busy themselves with work, play and amusement simultaneously. Our care teachers include areas to develop small muscles such as toys they can take apart and put together, things to grasp and hold, pick up and dump out. We also include areas and activities to develop sensory perception such as water play, sticky materials, play dough, things that are soft, hard, and rough and etc. Large muscle opportunities such as outdoor play, things they can run on, jump on and climb as well as materials to support creative expression such as music, dancing, scarves, crayons, and paint.

Oak View CDC, Huntington Beach

Splashing, molding and building at Oak View CDC in Huntington Beach! Oak View’s toddler program is a place where children are able to make sense of the world they live in. The children are able to work with many different materials such as sand, water, paint, clay, wire, beads, paper, crayons, markers, and colored pencils. They are also able to manipulate blocks and puzzles. Through dramatic play at the center, children take on different roles they see and have experience, and are able to pretend to be the mom, dad, pet, baby, big brother or sister.

Through all of these experiences they are building new vocabulary as teachers observe and give words to children’s actions. They learn about spatial awareness as they build with blocks, working at the water tables and on community canvas projects with a small group of peers. They are working on prewriting skills as they manipulate paint brushes, crayons, markers and other writing tools. As the children deconstruct the clay they are strengthening their muscles in their fingers which they will use when they begin writing.

One of the favorite activities for kids at Oak View is finger painting. They are allowed to paint and if they want to experience paint on other parts of their body such as arms, legs, tummy that is encouraged as well. We know that children need to understand the material they are working with and part of that experience is feeling it with their whole body. The teachers help build vocabulary with our young toddlers by talking about colors they are painting with and how one color mixed with another color equals a different color.

Oak View parents have expressed that they see the growth in their child after starting the program. They are pleasantly surprised at the self help skills they learn at the center. Some examples of this is washing their hands with soap and water, sitting at the table and serving themselves their meal, pouring milk from a pitcher to their cup, etc. The parents have said that at home their children’s language is emerging from using one word to using two to four word sentences to communicate. They also share stories of how their children have learned problem solving and sharing and learning to stand up themselves.

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