Childcare Program
We inspire a love of learning by making time each day to create, sing, move, discuss, observe, read, and play.
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Licensing and Policies
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Children registering for the 2023/2024 year, must be fully potty-trained by day of entry.
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We are not licensed for daily napping, but we do have "Cloud Time" which allows the children a body break and some relaxion time.
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Children must be turning 3 years old by December 31st 2023 to register in the 2023/2024 school year's program.
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We can only accommodate two under 3 year old's per classroom.
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We are registered in the Child Care Fee Reduction Initiative and the prices you see listed on our Fee Guide reflect the parent price.
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We are registered in the Child Care Fee Reduction Initiative.
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If applying for Affordable Child Care Benefits, we suggest doing so as soon as possible, as full fees are required in September and reimbursed if subsidy is honored.​ Please contact Kathy in the office once registered, for the ACCB Arrangement Form.
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If you have any questions please contact the office. We are looking forward to an amazing 2023/2024 school year.
Who Are We
The Kimberley Independent School provides licensed part-time or full time Child Care Programs. The Bears Den, The Foxes Hollow and The Owls Nest are staffed by qualified and caring Early Childhood Educators and Assistants.
Children are welcomed to be who they are, in an environment which is designed to allow them the most interaction possible.
Relationships are encouraged within each class, and within the school via KIS house activities and buddy reading. Community involvement includes Food Bank collections, Wildsight presentations, caring for our adopted section of Rails to Trails and trips to facilities such as the Kootenay River Trout Hatchery, Kimberley Public Library, and various local businesses.
K.I.S. provides supervised extended care for all registered childcare children from 3:00pm – 5:30pm, Monday to Friday.
Drop-in (when space is available): $20per day
What Makes Us Outstanding
Our staff provides children the space, materials and TIME to engage in open-ended, child-selected play. We spend a large amount of time outside, in our play-yards, and wandering in our neighborhood, community and in the forest near our school. Children and adults alike benefit from time outside of walls, with the beauty of our East Kootenay landscape washing over us.
The child has a hundred languages, a hundred hands, a hundred thoughts, a hundred ways of thinking, of playing, of speaking, and a hundred hundred more.
- Loris Malaguzzi, founder of the early learning schools in Reggio Emilia, Italy.​
Teachers and Children as Partners
Our programs are in the process of incorporating the ideals of the Reggio Emilia approach. Staff is learning about this process, mirroring the belief that children and adults are both teachers and learners.
Reggio Emilia based programs encourage:
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Collaboration between children, teachers, family and community
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Building physical, social and intellectual relationships with objects, the environment and people
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Documentation of each child’s work
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Sensual learning – encouraging children to use all their senses
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Reciprocity – valuing interaction and the exchange of ideas
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Children having an active role in their own learning
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"Play isn’t the enemy of learning, it’s learning’s partner. Play is like a fertilizer for brain growth. It would be crazy not to use it!"
- Stuart Brown MD
Long-term projects and child-developed play themes allow children to become deeply engaged in ideas. Adults document a child’s work through photography or other means to learn about development.
Special Events at KIS
Our children especially love being able to take field trips on our bus. We are able to take part in wider school activities such as sports days, monthly hot lunch, school-wide seasonal celebrations, House activities and safety presentations by police and firefighters.
"Carefully planned activities pale in comparison to more spontaneous experiences."
- Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods
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