Pedagogical policy
Every child-care center in the Netherlands has to work with a pedagogical policy. At Carpe Diem we have prepared our pedagogical on the basis of our practice. So it is a plan that has already proven that it works in practice.
An pedagogical policy is a dynamic plan: it changes a little bit every year.
Our pedagogical policy is therefore evaluated regularly by management, child-care teachers and our parent’s committee.
The complete pedagogical policy plan can be viewed at Carpe Diem.
Uk and Puk.
Since January 2011, we work with Uk and Puk. Uk and Puk is an educational program that focuses on all children aged 0-4 years. The program is divided into themes that include activities that ensure that we work on;
* Speech and language development
* Social and emotional development
* Motor skills and sensory development
* And contains incentives for developing math skills (a very simple example; if you have three pencils, how many children can make a drawing?)
Each activity includes appropriate guidance for the teachers in relation to the different age groups (0-1.5, 1.5-2.5, 2.5 -4). An essential part of every activity is what a child wants to do with the activity.
The first theme is “Welcome Puk!”. This is of course also the theme that we started with. The theme is about the daily preoccupations at the child-care center. The group space, décor and daily activities (playing, cleaning, eating, going to the toilet, etc.) are addressed. In these activities of this theme, the children get to know Puk (the puppet). Puk tells the children what he experiences he has daily an he makes the children tell him everything about themselves. The children also show Puk the child-care center. Puk is like one of the children!
Uk and Puk is designed to structurally work on the development of a young child, and especially to work on the speech and language development. This is not the reason why we want to work with Uk and Puk. There aren’t many children who really need a programe with this structure at our center, at this moment we don’t have children with a disadvantage in speech and language. But we do have a lot of children who are bilingual or trilingual and we want to work with Uk and Puk because it give our teachers structure and guidance.
The themes of Uk and Puk are thoughtfully laid out and very extensive. A theme contains stories, songs, talk boards, examples of crafts and other activities, a list of books related to each theme and a lot of tips for our teachers. Uk and Puk has everything we need to work very structured with a theme, and to work structured on the development of the children.
For each theme, we need materials that belong with the theme. With each theme we ask parents for their help with collecting the materials we need for the theme and as such as a parent you are also involved in Uk and Puk!