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18501 Tequesta Trace Park Lane, Weston, Florida 33326, United States
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Bright Minds Academy & Preschool Child Care CENTER
Welcome to Bright Minds Academy & Preschool
At Bright Minds Academy & Preschool Child Care, we believe that learning should be fun! Our play-based approach to early childhood education promotes creativity, curiosity, and exploration. We provide a safe and nurturing environment where children can learn and grow.
Our Program
Bright Minds Academy & Preschool provides a rich array of learning programs for various age groups, emphasizing creativity, critical thinking, and social skills through play-based and structured activities. Our Pre-Kindergarten programs focus on STEM education, promoting an interdisciplinary learning approach that enhances curiosity, creativity, and problem-solving skills.
Additionally, our Literacy Program adopts a balanced strategy, emphasizing alphabet recognition, storytelling, and interactive language development to foster a love for reading and writing. Pre-kindergarten children also engage in iPad education, music, physical education, and art appreciation.
The curriculum aims to highlight each child’s unique abilities by utilizing small group learning centers and teacher-directed strategies, fostering confidence and a lifelong love for learning. Monthly collaborative art projects, music, and outdoor play further enhance the educational experience, ensuring a well-rounded development for each child.
Our programs help the children develop the desire to learn, think, experiment and express creative ideas.
Bright Minds Academy & Preschool promotes Inclusive education by ensuring access to quality education for all students by effectively and responsively meeting their diverse needs, by being accepting, respectful and supportive. Students participate in the educational program in a common learning environment with support to diminish and remove barriers and obstacles that may lead to exclusion. We offer small class sizes so that the individualized needs of each student can be met and where they can be challenged in a structured and safe environment.
We accept students with varying diagnoses including but not limited to:
- High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder
- Slight Developmental delays
- ADHD
What does an inclusive preschool classroom look like?
- All students should feel welcomed in their environment, feel that they belong, and participate in the classroom so they can learn and reach their potential.
- An inclusive preschool is a shared learning space for children with and without disabilities. Typically developing children who learn alongside children with disabilities are better able to respect differences, demonstrate acceptance, understand diversity, be less prejudiced, and have more positive attitudes.
- Everyone contributes something that compliments their strengths and abilities and is respected, valued, and appreciated. Every child participates in meaningful ways.
- Staff members have a “can-do” attitude and work as a team with parents and providers; all are supported by resources and training. Teachers recognize that all preschoolers should learn and have access to the same standards.
Examples of accommodations and modifications that help ensure inclusion in a preschool.
- Physical and motor development
- Build handles/add rubber grips to toys.
- Ensure accessibility with Velcro or hand splints (elastic cords can help the child obtain the toy again and not have to wait for someone to pick it up for them).
- Allow extra time (students should not be kept in situations if they are uncomfortable).
- If a child uses a wheelchair, make sure there is space for them to safely maneuver.
- Sensory issues and social-emotional growth
- Make sure the lighting is consistent.
- Move distracting visuals away.
- Monitor noise level and physical arrangements.
- Seating arrangements should encourage participation and involvement.
- Allow for calming breaks.
- Provide support for transitions (five-minute warnings or visual warnings); practice and model or role-play transitions.
- Label and discuss feelings (“It looks like you’re having a difficult time right now; what can I do to help you?”)
- Encourage children to solve problems by themselves.
- Communication and language
- Simplify and repeat directions, but do not over-repeat or overwhelm the child.
- Use visual supports and cues.
- Provide verbal prompts for vocabulary they understand.
- Use words constantly that are in their environment.
- Understand that kids sometimes point, gaze, or use songs to demonstrate knowledge in their own way.
- Use increasingly complex words in context and explain meanings along the way; don’t assume every student understands.
- Help English language learners connect to their primary language and connect concepts in the English vocabulary.
- Use colors and shapes as they come up in real-life situations (for example, use household objects that represent shapes to help establish a connection with everyday objects)
- Limit the number of words used in a book to simplify the main items of action
- Have the child turn the page while reading to combine fine motor and literacy skills.
- Place labels on objects around the classroom to give children opportunities to learn to read and distinguish these objects. Even if they come in not being able to read, you are providing the opportunity to learn. Children must be put in environments that are rich with literacy.
- Sequence tasks from simple to complex (add more complex steps with each success).
- Give repeated opportunities to practice.
- Provide immediate and positive, descriptive feedback (not just “good job”).
- Use concrete manipulative and sensory materials.
- Schedule breaks.
- Offer choices, including preferred activities; when the activity is not the child’s favourite, engage in it for a few minutes and then move to a preferred activity.
- Allow time for students to process information and their experiences.
- Do not use modifications or accommodations if they aren’t needed.
- If doing an alternate activity, do it in such a way that the student doesn’t feel segregated or denied; recognize it as a different station only.
Adapting toys and materials
- Extend or enlarge materials (for example, add cardboard tabs to help students page through books).
- Create boundaries for toys (use hula hoops, plastic swimming pools, trays with raised edges, or box lids; tell children this is the boundary for their toys).
- Stabilize toys using Velcro, suction cups, small clamps/clips, and non-slip shelf lining (a magnetic strip attached to a toy can stick to a baking sheet); put toys in putty or Play-Doh; provide toys with wide bases.
- Add knobs to puzzles that don’t have them.
- Extend paint brush handles, crayons, and silverware using tape, putty, or sponge to make it easier to hold.
- Add something to the toy to make it more appealing (add a swatch of sandpaper or other texture to blocks, food coloring to water tablets, paint to shaving cream).
- Simplify by performing part of the activity (like a puzzle) and leaving the last part for the child to complete.
The importance of play in early education
- Play builds social skills as children begin to move around in their environment, use fine and gross motor skills, identify objects, use language and communication skills, and begin to understand cause and effect (“If I do this, this happens”).
- Play supports pre-literacy and math skills, as well as language skills and creativity.
- Play helps kids understand ideas (for example, wet sand creates mold, and too much sand can make the bucket fall over).
- Kids learn from watching their classmates play.
Creating a student-centered classroom
- Student’s voices are heard: they participate in a conversation about what their day looks like and initiate and make choices in the classroom.
- Emphasize active learning as well as collaboration among students, teachers, and specialists.
- Focus on differentiation (every child learns differently, at a different rate, and using different materials; see more on this in the section below).
- Importance is placed on social-emotional learning.
- Technology is integrated into classrooms.
- Give students the benefit of the doubt — assume they have competence. Look for highlights; if they do something out of the ordinary, reinforce it with specifics about what was done so they may repeat it.
- Reduce reliance on skills that highlight student’s deficits; allow them to build on their strengths.
Differentiation in the classroom
- Designate varied learning areas (some are quieter, some are more active; some should have a lot of toys and activities and others should have minimal stimulation so that kids with different learning needs can respond differently).
- Allow students to develop their skills in different ways.
- Use materials that can be used in more than one way.
- Model the use of materials based on how the child is using it.
- Give learners a variety of ways to gain information and content.
- Demonstrate what they need to know and maintain their interest.
- Provide multiple ways for students to show what they learned (for example, instead of responding verbally, they can point).
Our Curriculum
At Bright Minds Academy & Preschool, we follow the HighScope Curriculum.
Our main objectives are active learning, hands-on exploration of materials, shared control between teachers and children, and a whole-child approach to learning. Children are encouraged to plan which materials to use and how to use them, while teachers support and scaffold their learning.
The benefits of our curriculum are evident in its outcome for graduates: strong problem-solving and conflict-resolution skills, intelligent decision-making, the ability to transition between learning settings, and overall academic, social and emotional readiness for kindergarten.
Teacher's Role:
Effective teachers understand that students learn in many ways. As a teacher, you can strive to develop practices that help students understand and interact with new information. Scaffolding is one such pedagogical tool that can help students retain and apply new knowledge.
What is scaffolding in education? It’s a technique that establishes a firm framework of foundational knowledge before gradually building upon that framework. Our teachers are as active and involved as the children in the classroom. They thoughtfully provide materials, plan activities, and talk with children in ways that both support and challenge what children are observing and thinking.
Our educational approach emphasizes ''active participatory learning''. Active learning means the students have direct, hands-on experiences with people, objects, events and ideas. Children's interests and choices are at the heart of our program.