Five programs, one continuous thread
A child can arrive at six weeks old and leave for kindergarten having been taught by people who have known them the whole time. That continuity is the programme.
Infants
Our infant program offers a nurturing, safe and loving environment. We maintain a 1:4 ratio in our infant program. Teachers use the Creative Curriculum® and the Illinois Early Learning Guidelines to plan age-appropriate individualized experiences for each child.
Teachers plan intentionally across four domains:
Toddlers
Our Family Affair program embraces the curious toddler while maintaining a 1:5 teacher-to-child ratio. Toddlers are becoming more comfortable in their development and are interested in trying so many new tasks. Our teachers are prepared to nurture each child’s developing desire to explore and learn in an appropriate manner.
Teachers in the toddler classrooms have an advantage: they have already bonded and built relationships with these children since infancy.
Two Year Olds
Our program for two-year-old children maintains a ratio of 1:6. Teachers work diligently to ensure that the children are developing properly, in preparation for entering the Preschool program.
The children continue to receive individualized care from caregivers they have been with since infancy.
Preschool
Our preschool program is geared towards ensuring that children are ready to succeed and eager to learn when they leave for Kindergarten. Classrooms are set up with interest areas that offer opportunities for teachers to teach content as children explore materials independently or in groups throughout the day.
Materials guide learning in each interest area:
Pre-Kindergarten
Our teaching strategies are tailored to children’s ages, developmental capacities, language and culture, and abilities or disabilities. Children are exposed to rich vocabulary daily through stories and lots of experiences, using language that will better enable them to learn to read, write and understand written and oral language.
Through strategic lesson planning, teachers create opportunities for children to communicate, interact, explore and engage in activities that are active and quiet, social and individual, creative and planned, routine and flexible, and both teacher-directed and child-initiated — according to each child’s own needs and desires. That is what leads to meeting the school readiness goals.
The same framework in every classroom
Every Family Affair classroom runs the Creative Curriculum®, aligned to the Illinois Early Learning Guidelines. Teachers plan individually for each child rather than for the room, and they carry those plans forward as the child moves up.
That is what makes the continuity real rather than a talking point: the person writing a four-year-old’s plan is often the person who wrote their plan at eighteen months.
After-school and enrichment
Beyond the five core programs, centers can offer optional programming — which extends what families get, and what the center earns.
Own a center that teaches like this
Every program on this page runs on the same curriculum and the same ratios in every Family Affair center.