The Infant Room at Asbury Preschool is led by two co-teachers. It is suitable for children aged 6 weeks to 15 months. Children typically transition to the toddler room around 12 months. To ensure that your child is properly guided through the program, we maintain the teacher to student ratio at 1:4 with up to 8 infants.
Goals for the Infant Room
Our infant program offers a nurturing and creative environment where their minds and bodies can develop and grow. Specific program goals:
- Provide a clean, safe, nurturing, loving, and responsive environment where infants can develop their own unique ways of reaching milestones.
- Offer an environment that encourages cognitive, emotional, intellectual, social, and physical maturity
- Ensure that children are prepared by the end of 12-15 months to transition smoothly into the next phase of growth by feeding themselves, drinking from a cup, and self-soothing at nap time
- Good communication with families through daily reports, yearly evaluations, conversation, and feedback on a regular basis
- Provide a daily routine while still allowing flexibility on an individual basis
- Create an environment where parents can rest assured that their child is being well cared for every day
Activities*
Our infants engage in a variety of age-appropriate indoor and outdoor activities everyday designed to help them develop physically, cognitively, emotionally and socially. We also hold a bi-weekly music class.
Indoor:
- Being held and rocked
- “Talking” with teachers about the activities and routines they are engaged in
- Listening to stories and songs
- “Dancing” to music
- Art projects with teachers
- Free-play in the room’s centers including the reading corner, “soft toys” and “busy play” areas
- Learning how to hold a bottle and eventually feed themselves
- Practicing sitting-up, crawling, pulling-up and walking
Outdoor:
- Going for walks around the block in the stroller
- Blanket time in the shade
- Developmentally appropriate toys are available for gross motor play.
Diapers are changed every two hours or as needed. Bottles are given according to each child’s feeding schedule, typically about every 3 hours, and older infants transition to a more set schedule by eating school meals when developmentally ready.
*Detailed daily schedules are available from Asbury Preschool’s Director upon request.
Parent Communication and Involvement
Detailed daily reports are sent home every day and cover everything from when and how long your child napped to when and how much they ate, diapers changed, and any other pertinent information about your child’s day. At the beginning and end of the day, one of the co-teachers will be available to talk with you about your child’s day.