Design: Our recently expanded and renovated Early Childhood center has been designed with a feeling of home in mind. Walls are adorned with family pictures, and student art hangs all around. Our classrooms are set to look like a typical living room, giving young learners a feeling of well-being that helps them form bonds with teachers and peers.
Gross Motor Areas: Indoor play spaces where children can move and engage in gross motor activities are important, particularly in cold weather climates where children may be indoors for much of the winter. There they can climb, run, jump, using all their large muscles to improve coordination, balance, and agility.Outdoor Spaces: At Hillel, our indoor spaces open up to the outdoors, inviting nature to be part of our classrooms. Children use their curiosity to dig in the sand, run on the track, or climb on tree stumps. Encouraging children to try new things or to move outside of their comfort zone gives them a chance to experience new things, and to use all of their senses in their learning.
Teachers: Quality instruction by accredited teachers who research and implement best practices are essential to high-caliber early childhood education. Moreover, teachers who provide warmth, are sensitive to the unique needs of each child, and who are committed to nurturing their students academically and socially can make a tremendous difference in the life of a young child.
Community: At Hillel, our students are integral members of the overall community, fostering relationships with older students through reading and holiday activities, interacting on the playground, attending assemblies, and learning alongside their older peers in all of the spaces our school has to offer, including the gymnasium, art and music studios, greenhouse, MakerSpace, and Beit Knesset.
Heart & Soul: As we focus on each child’s strengths and interests, we also nourish their souls, and help them feel good about themselves. It is so important for children to feel good from the inside out and to be proud of themselves for all that they can accomplish.
The structure of our building is beautiful; the true beauty, however, is inside with our students and children. They are the heart and soul of the ECC.
Robin Pappas
Robin Pappas is Director of Early Education at Hillel Day School.
