Curriculum

Early Childhood Education

Bloomingdale children attend school 8 am-2:20 pm. Our 5 bilingual classrooms provide a learning environment that encourages children to explore, experiment, communicate, express their feelings, and become eager and confident learners. The arts enrich the program, and each classroom offers activities that reflect and celebrate the diverse cultural heritages of our families.

HighScope Curriculum

Each year, visitors are drawn to the Bloomingdale program for the opportunity to see the research-proven HighScope curriculum in action. Bloomingdale adopted the HighScope approach in 1987, to create a child-centered learning environment that gives teachers the resources and assessment tools to guide their practice. The HighScope approach complements and supports Bloomingdale’s guiding philosophy, which puts the individual child at the heart of the program. Goals are set for each child, and activities are developed to support the child’s continual growth and progress.

Through on-going staff training, Bloomingdale has developed a highly skilled faculty of HighScope practitioners, who work together to set appropriate and challenging curricular goals for their classrooms and for each individual child in the class. As several faculty are now certified in HighScope methodology, Bloomingdale has become a model of HighScope practice in the Northeast. Each year we welcome educators and planners from this country and abroad who come to observe in our classrooms and meet with our educational staff.

The HighScope Foundation, based in Ypsilanti, Michigan, has been conducting longitudinal studies for nearly 50 years that demonstrate the long-term value that children in HighScope classrooms experience compared with peers from similar economic backgrounds: higher educational achievement, greater job and marriage stability, lower rates of incarceration.

Educators who would like to schedule a visit to Bloomingdale should contact Marilyn Barnwell, Program Director of Education. 

Learn more about HighScope here