As your child turns 2 with the Brilliance Preschool & Academy, they will enjoy their first exposure to the educational techniques that will serve them as they progress into further development in our 3s Analyzers program, 4’s Predictors and eventually Kindergarten. This is not to say that they will be faced with challenges that they cannot meet but they will be exposed to education techniques designed to lay the foundations for the development of basic cognitive and motor skills. This program will likely be their first exposure to the fundamentals of the alphabet, the different colors and the shapes that make up the environment that they are encouraged to investigate. These concepts are introduced to the children through a combination of well designed activities throughout the day.

One of the most important developments that will be implemented during this program is the refinement of your child’s ability to interact with other students and teachers in a clear and positive manner. We achieve this through an encouragement of further communication skills that are necessary for group activities and assignments. As a natural inclination, your child will begin to form small groups with other students to accomplish simple tasks. We use this natural occurrence in a proactive way to encourage the proper development of social skills. We also teach the basic concepts of inclusion and how it will function in this and future programs.

We recognize the importance of using simple and fun activities to encourage learning in your child at this age. Our interactions with students will consist of imitation based activities that revolve around experimentation with different materials and objects. In language skills, we will read to the children to teach them how to listen to stories and begin to interpret the knowledge that they hear. Reading sessions will be short to retain your child’s very short attention span that is common at this age. Most learning about the alphabet and the student’s language will occur at later stages. They are able to recognize repeated words and numbers but at this stage, they are not yet ready to really learn them. They may appear to learn different letters and numbers but actually only memorize them. At later stages, they will begin to organize letters and numbers in a much more valuable way.

As most of this program involves the development of motor skills, the majority of activities will involve listening to songs and beginning to learn how to move to their rhythm. We will encourage dancing and other movements to music as this is a good sign that motor activity is being successfully implemented. Although they will engage in painting activities and creative opportunities, the goal of these exercises will be to give them experience in these skills rather than to complete concrete projects. You may begin to notice your child building simple structures out of materials that they find around the house. This will likely be a sign of how our program is working to promote the creative aspects of a developing child’s mind.

At the age of 2, your child will need to be having fun to learn. All of the activities included in our program are designed to do just that. Children are not yet ready for the learning techniques that they will experience in later programs and will learn more from fun approaches to familiar and new activities. In fact, we like to consider our preschool program to be a guided approach to all the fun that a child can have while exploring their world. This is not to say that the program is simply play time, as each activity is designed to make learning fun. While your child engages in simple and rewarding activities with teachers and other students, they are laying their own foundations for learning that will be essential to growth and development later in their early childhood education and their life.