PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHILDREN'S CENTER

The Children's Center at Purchase College, Inc. (NAEYC accredited) is a campus-based early childhood center and instructional facility. The families served are those of students, faculty, and staff of the college and of the community at large. The primary commitment of the professional staff of the Children's Center is to provide high quality child care in a safe, healthy, happy and stimulating learning environment. Designed to facilitate each child's social, emotional, physical, and cognitive growth, the program emphasizes gender equity and the development of a positive self-concept. These goals require that all members of the staff respect and maintain open, positive communication with the children, their parents, and each other. 

Purchase College students utilize the center in conjunction with course work, independent study, field experience, and senior projects. The Children's Center also pays particular attention to the needs of the community by offering parents invaluable informational resources, referrals, seminars, and conferences. The Center tries to be responsive to issues that face communities as a whole, such as public health, child nutrition, teacher training, and mainstreaming.

A very important part of our curriculum focuses on the integration of campus resources and early childhood practices. The children visit the Neuberger Museum for a diversified cultural and ethnic experience. We utilize the dance and music buildings to experience sound, rhythm, and movement through the performing arts. The children learn about science through our nature walks and outdoor activities.

In an open environment setting, the Children's Center provides children with developmentally appropriate activities, ongoing assessment of the children's development, and an anti-bias curriculum emphasizing inclusion and anticommercialism. Play - the universal language of childhood - is used at the Center to foster the growth of elementary concepts of time, space, number, and color. 

Games, painting, construction, modeling, dance, outdoor play, and music are used to sharpen cognitive and perceptual processes, as well as to allow children to interact constructively with others. The purpose of these exercises is to create an atmosphere of self-respect and self discipline, and to provide numerous opportunities for teachers to guide the children as they learn to make their own choices and decisions.
 

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