Exploration

1-Year-Olds are eager to learn about their world through exploration, whether playing with a new texture in the classroom's sensory bin or experimenting with water in our outdoor space. Teacher Karen provides them with ample opportunities to do so.

Play

Being play-based in her approach, Teacher Karen wholeheartedly believes that 1-year-olds and young children alike learn through play, so she sets up prompts throughout the classroom daily to encourage the children to engage (think: tape on the floor to imitate car lanes, babies positioned in a circle "playing" with classroom toys, etc).  ​

Cooperation

Even though these students are our youngest, we encourage and guide them on how to cooperate with their peers, emphasizing taking turns, engaging with one another in group activities, and playing as a group.

The Young Toddler room is full of age- and ability-appropriate toys and activities. The co-op also has an expansive collection of rotating activities that correlate with other elements in the curriculum.​​

• Ratio 1 adult for each 2 to 3 children.
• Brightly lit rooms with large windows looking out onto a beautiful garden.
• The perfectly sized indoor play structure with slide.
• Herb garden just outside, at toddler height.
• Aquarium with class pet fish .
• Activities - Packed day full of fun and age-appropriate activities, such as play dough, painting, stickers, markers, singing, dancing, and lots of free play.
• Texture tables - Indoor & outdoor 
• Books, books, and more books!  Don't know Brown Bear or Morningtown Ride? You will!

YOUNG TODDLER SCHEDULE

9:05am
9:30am
10am
10:20am
11:20am
12pm
​12:45pm

Arrival
Handwashing and snack
Diaper check
Outside time
Handwashing and lunch
Diaper check
​Time to go home

Teacher Karen

I have been SWPCC’s young toddler teacher since 1990 and have worked with children for over 30 years. The school’s Young Toddler program is unique in offering a daily 4-hour program for 1- and 2-year olds. Like the other classes offered at SWPCC, active parent involvement is essential to the success of the program. 

I try hard to make the young toddler room a busy, happy place. The ever-changing activities I organize are designed to promote a lifelong love of learning: lots of music and dancing, books, blocks, texture table, play-dough, messy art projects, and outside play time each day. Here very young children have open-ended opportunities to experience the joys of discovery, friendships, and trust. I love working with children this age. It is truly amazing to see how much they develop during the year they spend in my class.

I am a native Oregonian and earned a Bachelor's degree in geology from Colorado College. My teaching experience includes natural history education work at OMSI, Outdoor Schools, and the Garden of the Gods. Before taking the job of Young Toddler teacher, I spent 7 years as a SWPCC parent with my own two children.