Urban Sprouts

Urban Sprouts Child Development Center is dedicated to providing children with a nurturing environment that fosters a lifelong love of learning. Our programs are designed to meet the intellectual and emotional needs of children, and we work closely with our parents to connect the home environment with the care environment. Inspired by the Reggio-Emilia approach, we believe that children have the right and the ability to construct their own learning with the support and participation of teachers and parents. Children are the center of this community, and our goal is to facilitate their learning. We are committed to helping children gain developmental and academic breadth while maintaining their love of learning through child-led explorations.

Like our colleagues in Reggio Emilia, Italy, we focus on a child's natural development. It is child-centered and directed, and the child's point of view is completely respected. Learning must make sense to the student in order to be effective and significant. As such, our culture invites children to engage in hands-on experiences, and students are encouraged to follow their own educational path. In this way, each student learns by making their own meaningful associations. Facilitating learning in young children is a creative process. To be child-centered and directed, and to respect the child's point of view, educators cannot follow too strict a course of study. At the same time, teachers cannot simply react to what happens each day, without any goals or plans in mind. To that end, Reggio-inspired educators follow an emergent curriculum involving the use of listening, observing, analyzing, and refining in order to organize learning experiences for children based on both children's learning interests and teachers' learning investments. In turn, teachers use documentation to show children's ownership of their work, illustrate the learning process and communication, and help to make meaning of an experience.