The Rhode Island Early Learning and Development Standards provide a framework for children's learning and development, emphasizing the importance of play in education. At Stork's Nest Child Academy, the curriculum fosters cognitive, social, emotional, language, literacy, mathematics, science, creativity, and physical development through interactive and engaging environments. Teachers at the academy focus on intentional teaching to ensure every child achieves success, regardless of individual abilities.

1. Rhode Island Early Learning
and Development Standards
The Stork’s Nest Child Academy Inc.
Family Friendly Guide to Understanding the
Standards

2. What are the RI Early Learning
and Development Standards?
The Rhode Island Early Learning and
Development Standards represent the
expectations for children’s learning and
development and are to serve as a
guide for selecting curriculum and
assessment tools.

3. Welcome!
Come on in and see a high-quality standards-
based classroom in action!

4. Here at The Stork’s Nest Child Academy Inc., our
classrooms and curriculum reflect our strong belief in
the important role of play in how children learn.
Through play, children
enhance their learning
skills, knowledge and
dispositions that
guarantees success in
later schooling.

5. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
A well planned learning environment, where children and teachers participate as co-
learners, promotes a child’s willingness to try new experiences by exploring objects and
materials in different ways.

6. Children demonstrate curiosity when participating in
a variety of activities, while enhancing their ability to
pay attention to and think about the world around
them.

7. Children show initiative, accept help, develop
and follow through with plans until completion.

8. SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Children demonstrate a strong and positive self-concept, appropriate self-control and
growth in their awareness of their responsibilities when interacting with others. Healthy
social and emotional development depends on positive interactions with educators and
family members who understand and appreciate each child’s individual temperament.

9. Teachers provide children with an environment filled
with a variety of individual and group play
experiences. They learn to use materials
purposefully, respectfully and safely.

10. By playing, working, and interacting with one or more
children and adults, children gain self esteem, confidence
and trust in relationships. Although the goals for all
children are the same, the road and the pace of reaching
those goals may be different for each child.

11. Through a vibrant learning environment,
teachers expose children to a community,
based upon kindness, equality and
justice.

12. Language Development
Children develop skills in listening and in
understanding language through conversations,
turn taking, and by communicating their needs and
thoughts.
Children participate in conversations around
classroom topics and learn to use verbal and non
verbal language to express information. They will
learn to represent stories and experiences through
play.

13. LITERACY
Literacy is the foundation for creating a well-educated and responsible citizen. Through
natural exposure to books and print, and through conversations that prompt children to
discuss the people and important events in their lives, children discover that written
words are another way to share ideas.

14. Teachers provide opportunities for children to use writing tools and
materials in all areas of the learning environment. Children use
scribbles, shapes, letter like symbols and letters to write and represent
words or ideas and begin to dictate ideas, sentences and stories.

15. Children listen to and talk about a variety of types of
literature and learn to hear and discriminate sounds,
recognize patterns and identify the sounds of
language.

16. Teachers provide opportunities to explore and investigate books and other forms
of print and learn that it carries a message. The children show an awareness of
how books are organized, recognize some letters and words in books and the
environment, and recognize their own name in print.

17. MATHEMATICS
Mathematics help young children make sense of the world around them and
understand their physical world. Children learn to organize information into
categories, quantify data and solve problems helping them learn about time, space
and numbers.

18. Our teachers design the classroom environment for learning
opportunities in patterning, measurement, and the organization
of materials as a natural part of play.

19. Children describe and name common shapes found in the
natural environment and begin to use numbers and counting as
a means for solving problems, predicting and measuring
quantity.

20. SCIENCE
Children are captivated by the natural world and by physical events. By cultivating
their sense of wonder, our teachers help children to become scientific thinkers.
Children learn to use the scientific method in their everyday life.

21. Children use their senses and scientific tools to observe, collect and interpret
data and draw conclusions. Communicating their findings informally in
conversations or through the documentation of results, lead children to ask new
questions and to continue the cycle of scientific investigations.

22. CREATIVITY
Investigating and appreciating the arts allow children to integrate a number of different
skills essential to a child’s development. Music, movement, drama, and visual arts
stimulate children to use words, manipulate tools and media and solve problems in
ways that simultaneously convey meaning and are aesthetically pleasing.

23. Our teachers create an environment that fosters the arts, where children
learn to appreciate the contributions of other children and the works of
others that reflect different experiences, cultures and views.

24. Children are given opportunities to express their feelings
through movement and music, imaginative play and artistic
expression. Children are taught to appreciate and
demonstrate respect for the work of others.

25. PHYSICAL HEALTH AND MOTOR
DEVELOPMENT
Children use their senses and bodies to explore their physical environment. Young
children’s future health and well-being are directly related to strengthening their large
and small muscles, using their sensory experiences and practicing healthy behavior.

26. Teachers provide opportunities for children to challenge their bodies in
new ways. Children explore their environment demonstrating strength
and stamina, body and space awareness, coordination and balance,
and hand eye coordination.

27. Our teachers ensure that every child has the
opportunity to take responsibility in directing their
own learning.

28. All children, regardless of innate abilities or the
presence of disabilities, are able to learn and be
successful.

29. As children connect their learning each day to their
life experiences, they learn how to take the initiative
to carry their knowledge and skills to a new level of
mastery.

30. Stork’s Nest teachers engage in Intentional Teaching: acting with
knowledge and purpose to ensure that young children acquire
the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in school and in
life.

31. Power Point designed and created by Sherry Bowry 2014