Message from the Director of the Vlasic Early Childhood Center

The Cranbrook educational experience begins here in the Vlasic Early Childhood Center, where we provide exceptional learning opportunities for pre-, junior, and senior kindergartners. In the ECC, we believe a child's first school experience should not only be educational, but exciting and nurturing, as well, which is why our teachers create programs to spark students' imagination and extend their classrooms into the world beyond.

Our curriculum bridges the important transition between home and school, and emphasizes strong cognitive skills as well as social, emotional, and physical development. We ensure that students meet the academic standards and benchmarks appropriate to their age, while simultaneously providing meaningful context and real-life applications for each lesson. Our educational philosophy goes beyond lessons and activities, however, connecting with each student’s sense of wonder and amazement. A lesson in shapes becomes an exercise in making pizza or taking a shape walk, and lessons on symmetry look to the world around us every-day objects, from double doors, to the bottoms of our shoes. Through these connections to the real world, a child's enthusiasm for learning is sustained and a life-long love of learning is cultivated.

The Early Childhood Center works in close partnership with its families, and this partnership helps ensure every child’s success. Inside the classroom, students form important bonds with their teachers, who provide seamless transitions from class to class, day to day, and year to year. Our low student-teacher ratio is one of the reasons we can offer our students the personalized attention that helps them feel supported as they tackle new tasks and challenges, and it allows for individual attention and small group instruction. Our faculty is specifically trained in early childhood education and experienced with young children. The majority of our teachers have Master's degrees, and all regularly participate in professional development opportunities.

Parents are afforded many volunteer opportunities, both in and outside the classroom. They help chaperone most student field trips and work to support school programs through fund-raising and extra-curricular events.

The facilities and grounds of the Cranbrook Educational Community are extensions of the ECC classroom, which means our students don’t have to go far afield to appreciate master works of art, study natural animal habitats, or learn about weaving, for example. In addition to the Cranbrook Art Museum and Institute of Science, our campus offers state-of-the-art athletic facilities, including the Williams Natatorium and Wallace Ice Arena, which our students use in Physical Education classes or classroom field trips. Our close proximity to all these resources allows us to integrate many experiences into our students' day, often with the assistance and participation of parents and Cranbrook community members.

While you explore the following pages, you will learn about the special activities that enrich each school year, as well as our approach to education within each discipline. What we can’t capture in a web page or a sentence is the delight with which current and former students and families regard the ECC experience. That’s why we invite prospective families to visit the Brookside campus and experience the Vlasic Early Childhood Center for themselves.

Sincerely,

Karen Watson
Director
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