The Infant program at World Academy is a year round, full day, five day a week program. Ratios (4:1) are kept very small in this program, with a maximum room capacity of twelve, which allows our teachers to provide much one on one time with each child. Our nursery program is based on the RIE (Resources For Infant Educators) philosophy that allows our children to grow and develop at their own pace. RIE helps raise children to be confident, aware, focused, cooperative and resourceful. This philosophy is firmly based on respect and individuality. Some of the goals of the RIE philosophy are:

• Safety - to provide an environment for the child that is physically safe, cognitively challenging and emotionally nurturing
  
  
• Involvement - to provide the child involvement in all care activities (allowing them to be an active participant rather than a passive recipient)
  
  
• Interaction - basic trust in the child to be an initiator, explorer and self-learner
  
  
• Consistency - clearly defined limits and expectations to develop discipline
  
  
• Freedom - to explore and interact with other infants and have time for uninterrupted play
  
  
• Communication - the beginning of language development and the building block for security, trust and attachment

For more information about the RIE philosophy, please visit the website at www.RIE.org.

Our teachers are the key to making the program a safe, nurturing environment that will enable your child to develop physically, socially, emotionally and intellectually. The infant room is designed with your child's safety in mind. When an environment is safe, children can explore, test new skills and investigate their world without interference. A child's earliest form of exploration is through utilizing all of his/her senses (touch, taste, smell, sight, and sound). Teachers facilitate each child's experience and foster "authenticity" in all. Teachers look not only at the needs of each child, but also at the needs of each family and work in partnership towards meeting both. An infant needs nurturing, love, consistency, touch, movement, exploration, interactions with others, comfort, challenge and stimulation. These help develop the child's feelings of security, trust, self-worth and self-identity, curiosity, creativity and active involvement with people and the world. Our infant program has been developed to meet these needs by doing the following:

Each child has a ‘primary teacher' that usually feeds and changes the child. This provides a level of consistency for the child.

• A crib is provided for every infant in the program personalized with reminders from home
  
  
• Our teachers sit on the floor with the children to encourage and facilitate interaction eye to eye
  
  
• Infants are allowed free range of motion in our program - no walkers or swings are used
  
  
• All the floors in the Infant and Toddler Wing are heated as this is where our growth & learning
  take place
  
  
• The classroom is designed to allow children to explore and discover at their own pace
  
  
• Every Wednesday, the infants participate in music class in addition to their classroom activities
  
  
• Daily use of our well planned, interesting and developmentally-appropriate infant/toddler playground
  
  
• Daily walks (weather-permitting)