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The Early Childhood Centre at the University of New Brunswick provides a half day quality program for four year olds, five days a week from September to June. Since 1974, we have offered innovative programming for children including kindergarten, multi-age classes, and literacy programs for parents and their preschool children, and after school arts programming. Last year a home school parenting program enjoyed the use of our classroom space. We hope to extend this opportunity again this year.

The UNB Children's Centre also serves as a demonstration classroom for education students. Our teachers work with these students and course instructors to plan, evaluate, and document learning. Your child will encounter a range of educators.

We use the New Brunswick Curriculum Framework for Early Learning and Child Care - English to plan curriculum. We develop curriculum out of the interests, passions, and strengths of children, their families, and teachers, as well as seasonal and cultural events. Our classroom is a flexible environment where playful exploration, problem solving, and creativity are encouraged and purposely planned. Children's literacies and literate identities are valued and supported. We believe that children are active learners who are influenced by their relationships. We take care to cultivate responsive relationships.

It is our intention to welcome children and adults alike. We invite you to visit the classroom and participate in activities or contribute in other ways. Please help us include your families experiences into our programming.

We create bulletin board displays that document the ongoing learning in our classroom. Our displays contain curriculum webs, children's question or theories, artifacts made by the children, observations made the educators, and books, poems, letters, or songs. Educators listen carefully for your child's interests and learning. They encourage other children to respond to your child's work by inviting questions and responses. In this way, children's thinking, representations, and plans are stretched and celebrated. Some of this learning is documented through individual and small group learning stories. We keep a portfolio of learning stories for each child in our classroom. These portfolios are read and reread by children and their families. We welcome your feedback, questions, and insights.

	We maintain an outdoor garden!

As you look around the classroom, you will notice many learning areas for children to engage in meaningful play activities. These areas include a house corner, a block corner, a reading corner, an art area, and a science area, as well as manipulative materials, painting easels, and games that are intended to develop numeracies and literacies. Our program includes regular physical activities. Children spend a portion of each day outdoors or at the South Gym just behind Marshal d'Avray Hall.

Field trips are scheduled regularly to extend classroom investigations and enhance the children's awareness of and involvement in the community. We welcome you to join us during our outings. We will notify you in advance through our whiteboard communication and parent notes. You will be advised of any trip fees. Depending on the location of the field trip the mode of transportation will vary from car pool, chartered bus, or public transportation.

Please discuss anything, as it arises, that might intrigue or puzzle you with your child's teachers. It may be useful to set a meeting time if you need a focused, uninterrupted conversation.

The administrator and teachers are legally responsible to advise the local office of Social Development of any suspected case of child abuse of neglect. Any person suspecting child abuse or neglect shall report the incident at once to the administrator or teacher and together they will contact the department. A written record containing date of referral and related dates of incidents and circumstances contributing to the case will be maintained.

Our emergency location will be located at the Wu Conference Centre where upon arrival, parents will be immediately contacted to pick up their children.

In the event that your child is sick and needs medication, please send the medication in the original prescription bottle or package. Health regulations require that a medical log be completed and signed by you in order for us to administer any medication. We are unable to administer medication without its original labels. Please help us keep your child's medical/personal files up to date. If there is any change of address, telephone number, etc. please advise your child's teachers.

For the health and wellness of all staff and children, sick children and staff/volunteers should not attend. Please call the classroom phone number at 452-6068 to report your child's symptoms. It would be best to keep your child home if he or she is not well enough to go outside to play.

Health regulations require that:

1. Children and adults wash their hands for 30 seconds upon arrival at our classroom.
2. Parents complete the Return after Exclusion form upon each child's return to our four year old classroom after illness.

Snack time provides multiple opportunities for making friends and learning social graces. The children, with assistance of their teacher, prepare a nutritious snack in the classroom. Preparing and serving food is a valuable learning experience, as it incorporates opportunities for counting, matching, and reading to name a few. The sharing of food is an important social experience. The cost for daily snacks is included in the fees. Sometimes we ask for contributions from home to support our base sale fundraisers.

Classroom routines may vary to accommodate the activities (guest speakers, field trips, special events) and tone of the classroom. The following is an outline of a typical day:

Please use the university parking spaces around Marshal d'Avray Hall when coming to the building. Remember to to put your parking pass (provided by us) in your window. A parent or designated person must bring the child to the classroom and pick him/her up from the classroom. This ensures the child's safety in and around the Faculty of Education and provides the opportunity for parent/teacher interaction on a daily basis.

Children are permitted to leave only with designated people as stated in writing by the parent or guardian unless the teacher or administrator is notified.

Please notify the classroom teacher (452-6068) if you are unable to pick up your child. We will then be expecting one of the people on your emergency list to pick up your child.

Please label your child's clothing and belongings and leave a full change of clothes in your child's locker...just in case. We ak that your child have a change of shoes for inside the building. We also recommend sunscreen and a sun hat in the summer, extra mittens in the winter, and extra socks in the spring.

A special note on clothing. Children work hard with paint, clay, sand, water, mud, marker - a wide range of materials that are both exciting and messy. It is best that your child is dressed in clothes that support your child's full investigation in their learning.

If your child has an accident while at our classroom our procedure is to administer first aid, call home and let you know. We take extra care to touch base with your child following the accident to ensure they are okay.

Respecting materials and spaces, expressing emotions, and encountering and negotiating differences occur as part of everyday life. We consider disagreements to be teaching-learning experiences providing both children and adults opportunities to solve problems and negotiate differences and frustrations. When disagreements arise, we listen carefully to each child, encouraging children to listen to each other and identify with each other's feelings. We invite children to find solutions and we follow up with children to see how their plans worked. We respect and model the privacy needed to work through social disagreements. We help children to reflect on the consequences of their actions and offer other choices. There may be occasions that we ask for family support during relational negotiations.

UNB Children's Centre operates a morning class 8:00l - 11:45 Monday through Friday in room 209 of Marshal d'Avray Hall. Our Children's Centre closes during the December holiday season, March break, statutory holidays, or any time District 18 is closed on storm days.. The program runs for ten months beginning in September and ending in June.

Admission to the UNB Children's Centre is on a first come, first serve basis. Under the guidelines of Department of Social Development we have space for 20 four year olds in the morning session.

The monthly fee is $255.00 and payment can be made by post dated cheques or Visa/Mastercard. Post dated cheques for the entire year are due on the first day of class. Visa and Mastercard permission slips can be filled out during our orientation before school starts. A one month written notice is required when withdrawing your children from the program. A penalty of a half a month's fees in lieu of notice will be charged if this notification is not received.

Full fees are still required for absences due to illness or family vacations, etc. As long as your child is enrolled in the program, you are required to pay the fee. A non-refundable fee of $130.00 is required to hold a space for your child at the UNB Children's Centre. $100.00 of this registration fee will be applied to June's fees. By July 1, 2010 your September fees are due as a further confirmation of your child's space. Year end receipts are issued for tax purposes.

Early Childhood Centre
University of New Brunswick
Faculty of Education
P.O. Box 4400
Fredericton NB E3B 5A3

Office Phone: (506) 453-5024
Administrative Assistant: Gillian Yeomans
Fax: (506) 458-7841
Email: eccentre@unb.ca

Teachers:
Kristy Fitzpatrick and Hannah Jarvis
Classroom phone: (506) 452-6068
Email: eccentre@unb.ca

Pam Whitty, Director
Phone: (506) 447-3113
Email: whitty@unb.ca

Sherry Rose, Administrator
Phone: (506) 452-6875
Email: srose@unb.ca