Fayette Early Learning Academy admits children of any race, color, nationality, and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs and activities generally accorded or made available to children at Fayette Early Learning Academy.

Our primary goal is to consistently meet the physical, intellectual, social and emotional needs of each child by meeting the following objectives:

• Provide a qualified staff that communicates respect for the individual child through nurturing attention and positive affirmation;
• Assist each child to develop a positive self-concept and sense of responsibility;
• Furnish opportunities for the child to explore their environment and develop problem solving skills;
• Stimulate creativity in each child while developing body coordination through movement to music, rhythmic games, free art and teacher guided art projects;
• To provide a safe, secure, loving environment for children in which parents feel at ease and have confidence their children are being cared for in an excellent manner.

Children begin developing at birth and continue to adulthood. The successful completion of developmental milestones helps your child reach his or her full potential. You may track your child's physical development at well-child check-ups, but physical development covers only one domain of the five major domains of early childhood development. Your child's social, cognitive, communicative, and adaptive development determines future success as much as physical development.

Fayette Early Learning Academy uses Creative Curriculum as its program curriculum, aligned with the Georgia Early Learning and Development Standards (GELDS).

Creative Curriculum supports the five learning domains as described below:

Physical Development and Motor Skills. Physical development includes mastering movement, balance and fine and gross motor skills, according to the PBS website. During early childhood, your child's balance improves. He can walk on a line or small balance beam and balance on one foot. Your child also develops the skill to throw and catch a ball, walk up and down stairs without assistance and do somersaults. At this age your child begins mastering motor skills that allow him to build block towers, draw circles and crosses and use safety scissors.

Social and Emotional Development. Social development refers to your child's ability to make and maintain relationships. Your child cooperates with others during early childhood and begins to develop conflict resolution skills. She enjoys attention and may show off, while still showing empathy for others. At this age your child enjoys group games and begins to understand the concept of playing fairly. She can tell the difference between fantasy and reality but enjoys imaginative play with friends.

Approaches to Play and Learning. Curiosity and eagerness, confidence, risk taking, problem solving, attention, effort, persistence, imagination, creativity, invention, wonder, and delight are highly promoted in our approaches to play and learning. Children’s approaches to learning include how they go about developing new skills and concepts and their attitude toward learning. All children are born learners. Each child approaches learning in his or her own way, figuring out what “works.” For infants and toddlers, approaches to learning begin with their interest in the world around them and their desire to make things happen. They show curiosity and eagerness to interact with people and objects and excitement about their discoveries. Young children may express wonder and delight with smiles, movement, sounds, laughter, and later with language. They learn by doing and trying, when they succeed and even when they do not. They may try a variety of diverse ways to get what they want, which is how they begin to solve problems. When infants and toddlers do the same things over and over, they learn new concepts and strengthen their skills. Toddlers may become more creative and begin to use their imaginations during play, music, and art. music, and art.

Communication. Communicative development includes your child's skills to understand the spoken word and express herself verbally. During early childhood your child goes from speaking in short sentences to speaking in sentences of more than five words. Your child, once understandable only to those closest to her, now speaks clearly enough that even strangers understand her words. She talks about experiences, shares personal information and understands positional concepts such as up and down. At this age, it becomes possible to carry on a back-and-forth conversation.

Language and Literacy. If the job of a toddler is to learn to talk, the job of a preschooler is to learn to communicate, which is a complicated task indeed! From learning the sounds that make up words, to figuring out what the words mean and determining how to combine them into syntactic strings that have meaning within a culture or environment, mastering language use is a major achievement for such young children. Language use and vocabulary development is fostered within a social and cultural context, through meaningful interactions with parents, caregivers, peers, siblings, etc. While learning about language, children are also learning about culture, behavioral expectations, and social interactions. By the age of three, most children have considerable experience with language. They can understand most sentences, understand the use of basic prepositions (e.g., on, in, under), and use pronouns such as I, you, we, and they, along with some plurals. They show immense creativity in their language use, creating phrases for words they don’t know (e.g., calling snow “fluffy rain” or broccoli “eating trees”). Their spoken sentences on average are as many words long as they are old (e.g., at 3 they produce 3-word sentences). Most of their words should be understandable to a person outside the home. Across the preschool period, children are learning to categorize items (e.g., a shoe is not a fruit; a collar, leash, and bone are all dog items, etc.). Children this age learn to ask questions, the most prevalent of which the question is “Why?” which they are known for asking over and over.

Cognitive Development and General Knowledge. Cognitive development includes skills pertaining to learning and thinking; cause and effect, spatial relationships, problem solving, imitation, memory, number sense, classification, symbolic play, attention maintenance, and understanding of personal care and routines. During early childhood your child develops the ability to sort objects and can organize materials by size or color. His attention span increases and he will seek information through questions, such as "how?" and "when?" By the end of early childhood, he can count to 10, knows his colors and can read his name. He knows the difference between fact and fiction, making him capable of understanding the difference between the truth and a lie. Additionally, Creative Curriculum encourages the process of growth and change in intellectual/mental abilities such as thinking, reasoning and understanding. It includes the acquisition and consolidation of knowledge. Infants draw on social-emotional, language, motor, and perceptual experiences and abilities for cognitive development. They are attuned to relationships between features of objects, actions, and the physical environment. But they are particularly attuned to people. Parents, family members, friends, teachers, and caregivers play a vital role in supporting the cognitive development of infants by providing the healthy interpersonal or social-emotional context in which cognitive development unfolds. Caring, responsive adults provide the base from which young children can fully engage in behaviors and interactions that promote learning. Such adults also serve as a prime source of imitation.

Fayette Early Learning Academy supports all children, without exception and regardless of their current developmental capabilities. We secure opportunities for children with disabilities to learn alongside their non-disabled peers in general education classrooms.

Confidentiality. Children’s files, including their personal medical information, are secured in a locked office to preserve confidentiality for all of our families.

Healthy Transitions. It is our goal that children matriculate based on their own social/emotional and cognitive abilities. Family conferences are held with the parent(s), teacher, and Center Director to ensure that children are developmentally ready and that parents agree with the Center’s recommendation before any action is taken to transition the child to a new environment.

Family Conferences. We conduct family conferences a minimum of twice per year. Our goal is to ensure that your children are growing and developing, establish open lines of communication, and to allow our parents to inquire and provide feedback on policies and practices that make Fayette Early Learning Academy great!

Family Connection. Fayette Early Learning Academy strives to provide news that fits you! Parents can look for monthly newsletters provided at the Family Resource Table, weekly emails detailing the upcoming week’s activities, and a Facebook page for pictures, tips, ideas, events, and news.

Lending Library. The Parent Resource Table is available in the main lobby, where parents can find books on the latest trends and tips for first time parents (e.g. breast feeding, managing challenging behaviors, and so much more)! Parents are free to borrow books and donate as they wish.

Parent Cafés. Parent Cafés are held bi-monthly. This is a wonderful opportunity to network with other parents who may share the same joys and challenges as you do. Parent Cafés offer family connection activities and workshops for today’s parents.

Holiday Events and Activities. Holidays are such a joy for young children! Here are some of the fun festivities you, your family, and extended family and friends can look forward to at Fayette Early Learning Academy:

• Valentine’s Day: Fayette Early Learning Academy holds an Annual Dance and shares Valentines within each child’s classroom. We also set up a photo booth for parents and extended friends and family to take a picture with their children. Parents are welcomed to chaperone the dance.

• St. Patrick’s Day: Parents are encouraged to participate in the St. Patrick’s Day shenanigans by donating candy, chocolate coins, beaded necklaces, Lucky Charms, and glitter—lots and lots of glitter! Parents and family are also encouraged to play tricks on staff and children.

• Easter: The Friday before each Easter, we celebrate grandparents with an Annual Eggstravant Easter Egg Hunt. Each parent donates 12 pre-filled eggs and grandparents come early to help us hide them!

• Mother’s Day: Our Annual Muffins with Mom is celebrated the Friday before Mother’s Day. Stop by early when dropping off your child(ren) for some delicious muffins and coffee or juice.

• Memorial Day: Everyone is invited to our annual End of the Year Bash hosted the Friday prior to Memorial Day. Bring your swimsuit, towel, and lots of sun screen!

• Father’s Day: Our Annual Funky Friday Celebration with Dad is held annually, the Friday prior to Father’s Day. Come enjoy a bowl of fruit loops and try on some of our funky get up gear. Be sure to snap a fun, funky picture with your little one as well.

• Independence Day: The day before the 4^th of July is an enjoyable day for a cookout! Join us for hotdogs and hamburgers, chips, pickles, potato salad, and fruit! This is a holiday celebration for everyone! Parents and friends are strongly encouraged to participate in this annual celebration and enjoy the LARGEST slip slide in all of Atlanta! Get ready to get wet and have some MAJOR fun!!!

• Thanksgiving: Everyone is invited to our Annual Thanksgiving Feast. Our feast is always held the day before Thanksgiving at 11:00 am. Please bring a covered a dish and a VERY hungry appetite.

• Christmas: We celebrate Christmas all December long. Come help us decorate our Christmas tree the Monday following Thanksgiving. Parents are STRONGLY encouraged to participate throughout the month by sharing a story, cooking project, favorite holiday tradition, and/or craft project that embraces their own traditions, culture, and love for the holidays!

Exceptions. At Fayette Early Learning Academy, we respect each child and family’s individual differences. We encourage cultural sensitivity and encourage culturally inclusive family engagement. We embrace children and families of all races, nationalities, and religions. Parents are always welcome to share their experiences and culture freely. Annual calendars are provided to parents so that parents have the right to choose which festivities their child participates in.

Together, parents, school staff, and students can create a healthy school nutrition environment! Fayette Early Learning Academy believes that better health equates to better learners. Kids with healthier eating patterns and enough physical activity tend to:

• Have better grades
• Better retain what was taught in class
• Behave better in class (and at home)
• Miss less school time

Through Wellness and Nutrition Education, we give students the knowledge, skills, and confidence to make healthy eating choices. Nutrition education may include:

• Teaching about healthy meal patterns
• Reading Nutrition Facts labels
• Identifying sources of added sugars and saturated fats

Our wellness policy supports healthy school breakfasts, lunches, and afternoon snacks. Fayette Early Learning Academy strictly monitors our meals to ensure that children and staff are receiving the best and most nutritious meals available. Our meals are served with loved and the BEST local and fresh ingredients produced right here in Ga. We pride ourselves on ensure that sugar intake is very minimal, and that children received the required amount of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, dairy, and lean protein available.