Program Components

Highly influenced by the Reggio Emilia approach, our curriculum is inspired by children’s natural curiosity and inclination to learn through play and investigation. As children play with materials and tools, we see them moving through a developmental process of exploring, testing, and creating. 

• Exploring: Children begin learning through sensory driven and physically engaging play. 
• Testing: As children’s understanding evolves, they seek to test the responses, possibilities, and results of the materials. Through this process of testing, children learn what something can do, how they can use it, and how to take care of it. 
• Creating: When children are able to see the possibilities of re-creation or representation, they use the skills they developed through testing a material to create with the material. A pen is used to draw a bird. A clay ball becomes a butterfly. Blocks are transformed into a house. 

By allowing children to develop their own theories and ideas through this continuum, creativity and problem solving skills like flexibility and collaboration develop in meaningful contexts. Children build and develop their fine motor and gross motor skills, communication skills, executive functioning skills, social problem-solving skills, emotional regulation skills, and early academic skills like recognizing letters and counting one to one through explorations, projects, and play provocations.

All children have a drive to explore and create. Each classroom has a designated atelier space and we integrate a range of artistic materials and mediums to support children’s developing image of themselves as a creator. Through projects and open-ended play experiences, children learn how to use these mediums and materials to express themselves and make their thinking visible to others. In the atelier, children develop their fine motor skills, gain confidence in using different art mediums, and begin to plan their own projects by choosing materials, setting up their workspace, and carrying out their ideas.

Teachers at UCDS Studio are committed to cultivating inclusive classrooms and use the Social Justice Standards framework to build curriculum that reflects the diversity in our world. Divided into four domains-identity, diversity, justice and action (IDJA), the Social Justice Standards are comprised of anchor standards and learning outcomes, and provide a common language and organizational structure educators use to guide curriculum development and make schools more just and equitable. While originally designed for K-12 classrooms, the Social Justice Standards are meaningfully adaptable to the infant-toddler classroom as we support engagement in anti-bias, multicultural and social justice education.

This work is supported by UCDS’ DEIB Department.

Teachers at UCDS Studio lean into children’s inspirations and ideas, documenting the process of learning through notes and pictures, studying children’s behaviors and interests, and considering each unique individual both as their independent self and as part of the classroom community. Teachers are co-constructors of knowledge alongside the children. We believe that children and teachers engage in a dialogue each day as teachers offer opportunities and children respond through their play, questions, and the relationships that form. Teachers work as researchers both by studying children in the classroom and keeping up to date on best practices and approaches through professional development. We are committed to the professionalization of the early childhood teacher. Teachers meet daily outside the classroom to plan and design curriculum, reflect on how children are learning and developing through reviewing photos and notes, and to create documentation for children, parents, and the community.

Our self-designed assessment tool called The Student Profile was developed in response to our desire to document how we see your child as a unique individual within our school, what we know about your child as a learner, and the way your child builds and maintains relationships with peers and teachers. Using this tool deepens our conversations, helps us to consider the many factors that impact a child’s experience at school, and over the course of the year (or several years) tracks your child’s growth and development. A portfolio called a Journey Book, chronicles your child’s time at the Studio using a collection of individual learning stories, group stories, artwork, and lots of photos to illustrate your child’s experience learning, playing, thinking, and growing at school.