Early Care:
Principles, Philosophy & Curriculum
Program Principles
Chinese Culture And School Readiness Are Intertwined
Our teaching style and curriculum emphasize our rich Chinese heritage, culture, and traditions, bolstered daily with our core Trilingual and Bilingual programs. We prepare our children to be school-ready global citizens, in a fun and developmentally appropriate environment.
We Support, Nurture, And Value The Uniqueness Of Our Children
We are child centered: The children always come first. We are supportive, nurturing, and health conscious in our planning and preparing for the activities and the food offered. We provide a safe, open environment for every child.
We value, appreciate, and foster the unique attributes and experiences of each child and his/her family. Caring for each child and providing guidance and activities to help realize each child’s potential are important to us. We actively attend to his/her physical, social, emotional, and intellectual needs.
Play-Based Activities Enhance Learning
We believe that children learn through structured and unstructured play. We encourage them to creatively explore through our play-based curriculum activities, including music, songs, art, movement, and more.
Diversity Matters To Us
We believe in maintaining a diversity of cultures and socio economic situations at our school and encourage any family to apply. We are proud of our inclusive programs, including those that support subsidy families and special-needs children. We welcome all families into our inclusive programs.
Our Relationships In The Community Are Deep And Collaborative
We commit to maintaining trusting and collaborative relationships within the school as well as with the larger Wah Mei community. We have a strong network of partners and supporters who believe in the value we bring to our community.
Education Philosophy
We believe that bilingual and multicultural experiences are part of the development of the "whole" child and that both Chinese and English should be given equal weight in the educational program. Wah Mei is committed to considering the needs of children in all areas of development including: thinking and reasoning skills, communication skills, positive social interactions, fine and gross motor skills, emotional well-being, culture (i.e. art, music, and drama), science, and nutrition. We believe that each child's strengths and needs to be recognized, valued, and incorporated into the program. Further, children need a well-planned environment with many developmentally appropriate choices and experiences which encourage them to explore and learn. Wah Mei is also committed to addressing the needs of the whole family and to recognizing family dynamics. Parental input and participation are vital in building a successful early care and education program.
Curriculum and Goals
Wah Mei implements an inquiry-based and Creative Curriculum. The classroom environment is set up to support children’s development through learning areas: Library, Dramatic Play, Blocks, Art, Sensory, Manipulatives, Science and Exploration, Music and Movement, Games, and Writing. These areas are used to build upon the inquiry-based curriculum.Teachers guide children through in-depth projects of real-world topics. These projects and activities begin with children’s interests, strengths and needs. Children are given opportunities to ask questions, inquire, make hypotheses, recall past experiences and knowledge, and develop goals. As the project continues to build on those inquiries, children conduct experiments and through their hands-on learning experiences, they are able to answer those questions and make connections. Throughout projects and using the learning environment, Wah Mei supports the development in the following domains:
Self and Social Development: This aspect of the program focuses on the self-image of the child and his/her immediate world-the family, the home, the neighborhood. Wah Mei will present books, stories, toys from other cultures in a non-stereotyped framework. Sharing, playing together, helping one another, working together, etiquette, and accepting each other's differences will also be emphasized. The children will work on a number of cooperative projects.
Language Development: Identifying common objects in both English and Chinese, finger plays, creative dramatics, rhymes and riddles, puppet plays, listening to stories and folk tales are an integral part of the oral language development program. In addition, we encourage children to articulate their own experiences and create their own stories.
Literacy Development: Becoming familiar with books, print, and letters, writing his/her name, developing good listening habits, learning to sequence and retell details, and classifying objects and pictures are a part of your child's reading readiness.
Cognitive and Science Development: Insects, birds, animals, and plants that we see around our school, community, and city will be the primary focus of the science program. The science program focuses on ecology and hands-on experimentation. Children will explore the weather, space, air, water, etc.
Mathematical Development: Matching, comparing, sequencing, ordering, grouping, counting, recognizing and writing numbers, measurement, weights, shapes, and time (calendar) are some of the concepts covered in the math readiness program.
Physical Development: Wah Mei has a well-designed program to develop the fine motor and gross motor skills as well as train eye-hand coordination. We also offer a variety of games, relays, body movement activities to music, and free play with physical education equipment.
Health and Safety: Wah Mei promotes children’s learning in health habits, safety and nutrition by incorporating daily routines of hygiene, oral care, knowledge of wellness and safety practices such as injury prevention.
Visual and Performing Arts and Music: Children will be provided opportunities to explore visual art, music, drama, dance and movement. During those activities, they will experience the joys of creativity, self-expression and develop the appreciation for arts and music. The school teaches a wide variety of songs in both English and Chinese. The children will also be exposed to a wide variety of music: classical, jazz, rock, Chinese folk, and contemporary music, and music from other cultures and countries.