About Us

Welcome to School

The teacher personally greets each student as they arrive to help the children relax and make the transition of separating from parent and connecting to the teacher. Teachers assist individual students with breakfast. Each Classroom has a diffrent daily schedule but all classes have circle time, center time, outdoor play and technology time.

Circle Time

The teacher reviews information of the day such as: days of the week (including yesterday, today, tomorrow, month, date and year), counting to 30, weather, American Sign Language, listening and speaking skills, months of the year, student of the week, colors, alphabet, phonics, story sequencing (including prediction and retelling and recall of details), vocabulary development, mathematics, and discussion of the seasons and holidays, among other topics. The lessons of the week are also taught during this time. Circle Time concludes with an explanation of what they will be working on and the supplies they will be using in Center Time.

Center Time

The students cycle through several educational center activities in small groups. At some centers the students work independently practicing skills taught previously in Circle Time activities. Other centers involve the teacher introducing new lessons, or aides working on specific skills with the individual students. Working one-on-one with each student ensures mastery of the skills necessary for success in kindergarten and beyond. Additional class activities include: music,Sign Language, library, snack, recess, stories, singing, etc. Each of these elements helps to set the tone of the day.

Technology in the Classroom

FunCare Children's Center is the ONLY Pre-School in the La Porte area that has integrated interactive whiteboards and computers directly into our classrooms. This matters because it allows the children to use this technology when it is needed to enhance learning, not just scheduled weekly or daily visits to a "computer lab or resource room".

This feature is new and exciting, it also provides great educational value to our students. With the addition of the Interactive Whiteboards, our students will gain access to many hands on learning experiences. Each child is given an ABCMOUSE.COM account FREE OF CHARGE which allows both parents and teachers to track the child's learning progress! Children are able to work on learning activities using their account from home! You will never have to wonder again what your child is learning!

You might be asking yourself what added education can you receive from the Interactive Whiteboards, however, with their growing popularity in recent history, studies have been conducted to see the overall success of these boards. As it turns out, the Interactive Whiteboards will continue to change and maximize the way that our children learn, develop, and grow.

For many of you who are still unfamiliar with how the Interactive Whiteboard works, it is a large display that connects to a computer's desktop onto the board’s large 72" screen. From this screen you can control the computer with a pen, your finger, or any other device. The interactive boards at our center are used by the children to perform many activities from tracing letters, puzzles, music, social studies science and reading books!

To prove the effectiveness of the Interactive Whiteboard, recently a study was done with 85 teachers and 170 classrooms. These 85 teachers were asked to simply instruct lessons that they had been teaching without technology on the Interactive Whiteboards. The outcome was remarkable.

The study results proved that while using the Interactive Whiteboards, students in these 170 classes improved 16% in total gain in student achievement. This means that expected children in the 50th percentile in a classroom, could potentially increase to the 66th percentile by using the Interactive Whiteboard while learning.

Besides the increase of student achievement in the classroom, there are three other valid effects that come from using this technology while learning. First is the “learner-response device”. For example this can occur while children are using ABC Mouse. While completing an activity, children can see if they have successfully answered questions correctly. If the answers are finished correctly, then they will receive tickets. Ultimately this shows a response to something that the children are learning, and by letting students see their correct answer immediately it can promote even higher gain in student achievement.

The second feature that has been proven to provide an excel to children’s learning is the use of graphics and other visuals to represent information. Again, while on ABC Mouse children can click anything on the screen to learn more information. If they see a walrus on their ABC Mouse account, all they have to do is click on it to hear more facts about this animal. By doing this, children are actively using visual aids to enhance their learning experience.

Reinforcing ideas, answers and topics is another proven effective learning skill that comes from using Interactive White Boards. An instance of this would be while using ABC Mouse, children can play educational games that lead to answers about unusual content that they wouldn’t see in every day life. For example, children could be playing a word-associated game about the tundra. When children comprehend this content, or answer a question correctly, applause will sound. The reinforcing sounds and visuals can help children remember answers and discussions about things that may be hard for them to comprehend in other circumstances.

After learning more about the Interactive Whiteboard and everything that it can do, it is obvious that it is much more than just a giant projector and screen. Children can actually use it throughout their day-to-day experiences while learning.