Curriculum

New Castle County Head Start, Inc. uses Creative Curriculum, Doors to Discovery and Partners in Excellence (PIE) as the foundations for the program’s curriculum.

Creative Curriculum helps students use the classroom environment productively and see themselves as capable learners. A carefully organized and print-rich setting is the foundation of the Creative Curriculum. Creative Curriculum focuses on 38 curriculum objectives and dimensions, which define the learning objectives and growth goals for children. Teachers record written observations on children daily and input observations into an assessment tool called Creative Curriculum Gold.

Outcomes reports are generated three times a year for review by program management, center management and classroom staff. By using the outcomes reports, each teacher is able to assess the needs and strengths of each child and individualize lesson plans and activities to promote each child’s development. Teachers review the individualized lesson plans with parents at parent/teacher conferences.  The final outcomes report measures the progress that all children have made during the program year and provides important information for planning for staff training and classroom needs.

Doors to Discovery curriculum focuses on increasing the students’ speaking and listening vocabulary, including letter recognition, letter sounds and a general understanding of reading and writing, e.g., words that are spoken can be written down and words that are written down can be spoken.  Doors to Discovery helps students develop language skills for a successful kindergarten transition.

Partners in Excellence (PIE) principles promote healthy social and emotional development for early learning and prevent challenging behaviors. The Partners in Excellence (PIE) curriculum supports the students’ development of self-discipline skills.  All staff members receive PIE training and work cooperatively to promote each student’s social and emotional growth.

In addition, New Castle County Head Start, Inc. establishes partnerships and pursues grant opportunities with education and non-profit organizations to continually enhance and improve the Head Start curriculum. New Castle County Head Start, Inc. strives to serve as a leader in the implementation of the latest research on early childhood education. Some recent examples of Head Start’s innovative curriculum improvements include a Grow Up Great with Science grant to foster a foundation in science for preschool age children; REAL Math pilot program to enhance the math curriculum; Early Learning Mentor Coaches grant to improve the quality of teaching; and an Early Reading First grant to increase the speaking and listening vocabulary of preschool age children in preparation for early reading.