C5 Childrens School

Programs: Child care - we provided comprehensive, high quality early childhood education experiences daily to 146 children age 2 months to 6 years so that their parents could go to work and successfully participate in our economy. Through a competitive process, we were selected to operate the child care center in the new san francisco public utilities commission building. We took possession on july 1, 2012, moved our infant program into the new facility and added 44 more spaces for children age 2-6 years. With significant influence from the preprimary schools in reggio emilia, italy, our emergent curriculum is based on children's interests and fascinations as the primary learning vehicles and we guide them into in-depth explotations through primarily a project approach. This co-constructive learning model is augmented by working with children as their egalitarian partners and facilitating small learning groups to learn very effective group processes and become powerful learning teams. We have helped our enrolled families, geographic neighbors, and our colleagues to better understand and appreciate the amazing capacity of children by offering a comprehensive website for families and staff, receiving frequent guests who tour our centers, meeting visiting dignitaries, speaking regularly to college classes, designing and hosting regional seminars, and holding for the thirteenth year a month long festival of learning in may, 2017 that included: a public exhibit of projects from all of our learning groups with an elaborate ribbon cutting ceremony; taking each learning group into public venues to conduct regular classes to demonstrate children's capabilities in their explorations and expressions, a weekend seminar/workshop for education professionals and the general public on how we work with children, and a family picnic in the park that also celebrates children's work.