Infants and Toddlers
From 6 weeks to 2 years of age, students’ children are nurtured through routines and experiences that support social-emotional growth and cognitive development and form the basis of language acquisition. Briya’s infant and toddler staff engage parents in culturally responsive ways and provide the whole family with a strong start in the critical early years.
In Briya’s multicultural classrooms, teachers engage in deep observation and reflection to provide children with the environment, materials, and interactions that address all areas of development and learning. Teachers reflect the cultural and linguistic diversity of the student population. Briya’s infant and toddler program is heavily influenced by the Reggio-Emilia philosophy, which emphasizes child-directed learning and exploration through relationships and natural materials. Briya’s infant toddler program also draws inspiration from schema theory and teachers regularly document children’s schema explorations and scaffold their interactions and plans for children to honor children’s natural competence and curiosity.
All infants and toddlers have a parent enrolled in Briya’s ESOL program, and they come together weekly for a rich, guided Family Time educational experience.
Pre-K
Teachers address all domains of learning by engaging children in project-based learning. Children in Briya’s program consistently meet and exceed yearly progress benchmarks.
Briya offers a high-quality dual-language inclusion program for three- and four-year-olds. Briya employs a co-teaching model and materials and instruction are provided in both English and Spanish. An English-speaking and Spanish-speaking teacher are present in each classroom, and materials and instruction are provided in both languages. Briya also recognizes that social-emotional competence is the foundation for early learning and prioritizes this in instruction.
Briya’s preK classrooms are grounded in social-emotional learning, project-based investigations, Reggio Emilia approach, visible thinking routines, and connections with the natural world. Children are active explorers in the school’s indoor and outdoor classrooms, constructing knowledge and social relationships through both self-directed play, collaborative small group experiences, and intentional teaching.The Creative Curriculum® and Teaching Strategies GOLD® provide a comprehensive curriculum and assessment, and additional assessment tools and curriculum resources are used as needed. Briya’s MTSS program helps staff collaboratively plan instruction that is individualized, developmentally appropriate, and engages families as experts and partners in the process.
Teachers and families communicate on an ongoing basis throughout the school year about children’s progress related to playful learning and acquisition of skills and concepts. Through weekly Family Time, parents and teachers are able to build strong relationships, exchange key information that helps to support the child, and extend classroom discoveries, vocabulary, concepts, and projects of interest into the home. Parents are also able to share language, culture, and resources with teachers.