The overall goal of IHSD’s teaching staff is to offer a
developmentally appropriate curriculum with a strong emphasis on language
acquisition, cognitive development, social competency, and creativity in
young children. In all of IHSD’s programs, teachers create an environment
that is rich with developmentally appropriate and culturally diverse
materials that can be freely explored by children. The classroom learning
environment encourages active learning through sensory stimulation, peer
interaction, and adult-child interaction. Moreover, IHSD’s programs offer
an environment where children have an abundance of opportunities to
interact with others, make choices, and learn decision-making and
problem-solving skills. The teachers create lesson plans based on topics of
the children’s interest and keep their plans open-ended in order to be
responsive to the children’s evolving needs and interests.
IHSD’s center-based child development programs use The Creative Curriculum
as their framework for planning the learning environment and
developing activities for young children. The underlying theme of The
Creative Curriculum is that learning is a creative process that involves
supporting the creativity of both the children and their teachers. Children’s
creativity is supported through an environment that encourages them to try
out ideas and risk making mistakes, while the teacher’s creativity is
supported by a curriculum framework that encourages innovation and
responsiveness to children.
