Childcare Program
We inspire a love of learning by making time each day to create, sing, move, discuss, observe, read, and play.
Who We Are
The Kimberley Independent School Wolf Pups Childcare is a year-round, full time blended Preschool and Group Childcare licensed program, running daily from 8am-5pm. The Meadow Room and Forest Room 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 whole school activities, events 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 other local businesses.
"Carefully planned activities pale in comparison to more spontaneous experiences."
- Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods
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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Sensory 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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Long-term projects and child-developed play themes allow children to become deeply engaged in ideas
"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