Welcome to the ‘Little Manatee’s Cove’ PreSchool
Why Little Manatees Cove Preschool
Our small class ratios help us to provide more one-on-one time with children. We have a research based curriculum in every classroom with hands-on activities and focus on the whole child. Our teachers spend time creating a relationship with every child to ensure trust and respect is established first before focusing on the academic side of teaching. Our goal is to build skills that will set children up for all aspects of life.
Meet Our Directors
Deirdre Dimmitt- Director
Deirdre Dimmitt has been in the early childhood field for over 12 years. She has a Masters Degree from UNCW in Elementary Education and a Bachelors Degree from Lynchburg College in Human Dev and Learning with a Minor in Special Education with a concentration on emotional and behavioral disturbances. Deirdre has working in schools in New York, Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida. She was a director for the past 5 Years before opening up her own center. She prides herself on the importance of differentiation and teaching to the whole child.
As a school that is funded by ELC, we are required to uphold a higher standard in regards to curriculum. We are given a list of approved curriculums to choose from. We have chosen Frogstreet Curriculum for the whole school.
Frogstreet Curriculum is a highly recommended, research based curriculum that focuses on teaching the whole child. With the latest scientific domain research in ages 6 weeks to 5 years old, Frogstreet remains one of the highest rated curriculums for early childhood education. There are 4 curriculums in the whole school pack that follow each other as they progress in age. Each curriculum is specifically designed and tailored tot he specific age range to help children progress as they move up in the school. Conscious Discipline is a social emotional curriculum that is in bedded throughout Frogstreet in every age range. Frogstreet uses fun kid friendly themes with intentional activities to help children grow. There are differentiated activities in each lesson as well. Lessons are whole group, small group and hands-0n to ensure every learner is getting what they need.
Little Manatee’s Cove has a comprehensive approach to educating and enriching the whole child. We make every effort to make learning intriguing, interesting, and rewarding. We strive for young minds to enjoy learning and for learning to become self-fulfilling. Our preschool curriculum is play based because play is the most appropriate mode for a young child’s learning. How to learn is given as much priority as what to learn and we understand that all minds learn differently. Our experienced and highly qualified teachers enable each child to reach his or her highest potential by supporting children through every milestone. We pride ourselves on having the patience , knowledge, and techniques to educate all types of learning. Our low child-to-teacher ratios and small class sizes enables our teachers to:
- spend quality teaching time with each child;
- develop close child-teacher bonds of affection, trust, and respect;
- assess each child’s social, emotional, cognitive, and physical growth and work to achieve the best learning outcomes for each child;
- work with children in small groups;
Our goal is to build skills that set children up for success in all aspects if life now and for the future.
Our mission is to foster a love of learning, build lasting relationships, and help your child grow in every aspect. We do this with our play-based curriculum, teacher and self directed play, positive learning experiences, school readiness, hands-on learning, STEAM activities, and early successes that focus on the whole child.
Our principals and goals are:
-Supportive interactions between teachers and children. How teachers relate and interact with the children in their care matters more than the curriculum being taught. They provide essential development for self-esteem, social competence and intellectual growth.
-Safe, supportive and engaging learning environments. If a child does not feel safe in their environment both physically and emotionally, nothing else will matter. The health, safety, nutritional, and basic needs of the children must be met first to promote all phases of development. Children work best through play and our classrooms reflect that in the environment and curriculum.
-Focus on the whole child. Our teachers use standards and curriculum that touch on all areas of children’s development. We set up our classrooms to make sure that each area has a part in the everyday routine. These include, language development, literacy, math, science, creative arts, approaches toward learning, physical health and development, and social emotional development.
-Create a culture of continuous learning and school assessments and data collection. All children learn and develop at different rates and in different styles. No one single assessment style will be able to help you understand where each individual child stands in their progress. We collect data and assess all areas of development and are sure to provide learning activities and explorations that touch on all area of development and are differentiated for the variety of children in the classroom. Assessments are done in informal and formal ways so the teacher is able to change and adapt lessons for each child so that each child can learn at their own pace and level while being included in the daily classroom life.
-Connections to families and our community Having a strong connection to the families of our school help to stimulate the children’s development. When the families and school work together we are able to make sure that the child is getting all they need from every person in their life. We use parent participation, ideas, languages, and cultures from children’s homes into the classrooms. We are connected with the community and strive to learn more about it, bring community into the school in various and safe ways, and find ways to help our community.
-Effective administration. Efficient and effective administration focuses on the needs of the children, families, and staff. They are calm problem solvers who are ready to take on any challenges and make sure that the school remains a safe, healthy, happy place for all who enter the environment.