Program Overview
Every detail of our center is designed to enhance the learning experience of our children. The experiences and materials we provide nurture each child’s curiosity and creativity. With the support of our partners, we work to connect children daily to the world by introducing art, gardening, music, books, field trips and more:
Creative Curriculum
Barrett has embraced the HighScope program, with its 58 Key Developmental Indicators, into its learning and classroom structure. This approach is based on the fundamental premise that children are active learners, who best learn from activities that they plan, carry out and reflect on. A central element of the day is the ‘plan-do-review sequences’ in which children make a plan, carry it out and then reflect on the results.
However, we also recognize that each child is unique, each with different rates of development and different temperaments, interests and learning styles. Our goal is to expose all children to the curriculum standards and help them in their learning and kindergarten preparation.
literacy discoverY
* Play Partners from ReadyKids visit every week to lead reading and interactive activities around a book of the month, that the children then get to take home. Each child receives their own copy.
* Free library which allows children to choose what they want to read and to build their own library
* Computer literacy
* Every classroom has a vast library and reading corner
Music, Art, and Theater
The Charlottesville Symphony at UVA visits four times each year in a mesmerizing program called Tunes and Tales. Over the school year, symphony musicians introduce Barrett children to four families of instruments, with music and storybooks, culminating each session with a petting zoo, whereby each child can play each instrument.
We Belong, a year-long adventure to explore local art and theater, includes field trips to UVA’s Fralin museum and Kluge-Ruhe museum as well as the Paramount, Discovery museum and other local treasures.
Urban Gardening
The center boasts a year-round gardening program from perennial fruits to summer vegetables and winter greens.
The annual field trip to the Albemarle County Fair brings in lots of FIRST place ribbons for our produce and crafts.
Field trips
Walkable to downtown and area parks makes field trips fun and exciting. McGuffey Park, Tonsler Park, IX Art Park, City Hall, the fire station, and UVA are all close by. Annual field trips to Carters Mountain, the Albemarle County Fair, and Westminster-Canterbury Blue Ridge for a special holiday program, are highly anticipated every year.
setting Lifelong healthy habits
* To feed the soul and strengthen the spirit, we provide a healthy breakfast, lunch and snack
* A safe and healthy home away from home. Barrett has undergone major renovations using materials chosen with care for energy and water efficiency, healthy air quality standards, and the latest in natural and LED lighting.
* Embracing a reduce, reuse, recycle philosophy, Barrett minimizes disposable materials with washable tableware and a recycling program