Valentina's Preschool

Reggio Emilia inspired preschool in Culver City, CA. We teach the children through play and hands on experiences.

Our academic curriculum is theme based, related to what is happening in nature and our immediate cultural environment. The curriculum includes language arts, math concepts, science concepts, the Spanish language and art projects. Our teaching involves lots of observation and active learning, where the children are focused on finding solutions rather than memorizing given answers. We are actively f

ocusing on all aspects of a child’s development: cognitive, physical, social and emotional.
- Cognitive: rich curriculum that is focused on each child individually.
- Physical development: We provide the children heathy, nutritious and homemade food. We teach them about the importance of eating healthy food by offering the variety of healthy foods daily; we are very patient and attentive in developing good eating habits with the children. To develop large motor skills, every day there is a variety of exercising indoors and outdoors that is fun and developmentally appropriate. As a part of this effort yoga and dance classes are incorporated in our curriculum. We spend long stretches of time within our outdoor classroom.
- Social and emotional development: often occurs organically, as parents and teachers model positive relationships. Social skills can also be taught, just like any other skill. During the preschool years ,the children can learn the basics of emotional literacy ( the ability to identify, understand, and respond to emotions in oneself and others in a healthy manner) as well as social interactions such as saying hi and buy, taking turns, saying sorry, please, thank you and problem-solving. We focus on helping the children learn to resolve their conflicts in a peaceful and nonviolent way.
- In disciplining the children we like to practice positive discipline and REI approach developed by early childhood educator and researcher Magda Ge**er. REI is defined as:
“Respecting a child means treating even the youngest infant as a unique human being, not as an object. When we help a child to feel secure, feel appreciated, feel that “somebody is deeply, truly interested in me,” by the way we just look, the way we just listen, we influence that child’s whole personality, the way that child sees life. The more we observe, the more we understand and appreciate the enormous amount and speed of learning that happens during the first two or three years of life. We become more humble, we teach less, and we provide an environment for learning instead. During care activities (diapering, feeding, dressing, etc.), we encourage even the tiniest infant to become an active participant rather than a passive recipient of the activities. We establish clearly defined limits and communicate our expectations to develop discipline. “