Opti-Baby & Kids welcomes your child every day with open arms. We understand the heart of a parent, and we do everything from a parent’s perspective. Daycare is a big step for you and your child. We know that you’re entrusting us with the care of your little one who is, after all, your most precious gift. That’s why we create a caring, nurturing home from home environment.
The schools’ unique offerings and ethos
At Opti-Baby & Kids we create a place of well-being and joy to bring parents like you the enormous comfort that comes with knowing your little one is cared for and thriving.
These are our philosophies and values that shape Opti-Baby & Kids experiences and set us apart from other day-care centres:
- A place for your child to grow.
- Be assured your child is welcomed every day with open arms.
- You’re always informed.
- Check in anytime with live-view camera access.
- The joy of learning and learning through play.
- Keeping our caregivers and teachers motivated, engaged and confident.
We believe that the very early years are critical for the optimal brain growth and overall development and that your child deserves nurturing care and education to help them to flourish in a safe, healthy and educationally enriched environment.
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To do this we keep our adult-child ratios low in the baby and toddler classes so that your child develops a secure emotional attachment to the staff – and so that staff can provide warm individualised care and attention to each child.
Education programme and benefits
An important aspect of the preschool programme is to help children to develop positive relationships with children and adults; to be able to self-regulate (the basis of self-discipline) and to conform to social norms; be empathetic and respectful to others; to be independent and to want to attempt new challenges.
We have a dedicated baby curriculum (ages 3 months to 12 months) through which staff do a variety of daily individualised activities with each child. Young toddlers (1- to 2-year-olds) are new walkers and use these fast-improving motor skills to explore the world.
The 2- to 5-year-old groups follow a weekly theme and play-based programme, which covers all early learning developmental areas as recommended in the SA National Curriculum Framework for Birth to Four. These are done through activities enjoyed both indoors and outdoors such as art, music, movement, books and stories, science, maths, sensory play, fantasy play, block and other construction play.
In addition, children receive weekly kinetics and music classes presented by external specialists in these fields.
“We want it to shout innovation, contemporary, fun, nurturing and homely all in one space.”
A common thread running through our preschool activities is giving the child the opportunity to develop the following 21st century skills, which have been identified as crucial for coping with the future:
- critical thinking
- collaboration
- creativity
- communication
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9 examples of how preschool activities help your child
- Gross motor activities, active games and exploration of the outdoor equipment form the basis for the development of many cognitive and physical skills.
- Fine motor activities develop the small muscles of the fingers, arms and hands. Fine motor development is linked with the development of vision to enable the child to reach, grasp and manipulate (e.g. eye-hand co-ordination).
- In our maths activities we include the concept strands of early mathematics (numbers, patterns, shape and space, measurement and data collection) in multiple ways throughout the day.
- In our science activities we cover the concept strands of life science (living things e.g. plants, etc); earth science (rocks, shells, water, weather, space, seasons, etc), and physical science (examples such as colour investigations, solutions and chemical reactions, motion, force, magnetism, temperature, etc).
- Fantasy play reinforces symbolic thought, imagination, creativity, communication and collaboration as children test out future adult roles and express their understanding of the world.
- Art activities have multiple benefits for development, the most important of which are the development of creativity and imagination, as well as the fine motor, eye-hand and eye-focus skills required for writing and reading (which starts formally in Grade R).
- Block play and construction activities (such as building with Duplo and Lego) provide multiple educational experiences which include maths, technology, engineering, design and creativity) – all important for the child’s overall development.
- Child kinetics, presented by a professionally qualified person, uses scientific and individual-based training programmes for the psychomotor development (relationship between cognitive functions and physical movements) as well as the physical and neuro-motor development (relationship between the nervous system and movement) of children of various ages.
- Music contributes to all areas of development and also to school readiness, language and overall literacy.
Flagship school re-opening in Rosebank
The Opti-Baby group is relocating to its new premises in early 2019. This new facility will be the Opti-Baby flagship school. We want it to shout innovation, contemporary, fun, nurturing and homely all in one space. The school will automatically draw parents into seeing this as a place where they’d like to send their children and children will be enticed to want to explore and play.
How many schools and where are they located in SA?
While each school has its own unique character and feel, we follow standardised, exclusively developed curriculums and structure our days in the same way across all schools. We have 10 schools in Gauteng – six located in Johannesburg and four in Pretoria.
Also read:
Helping your child cope with school
Going back to work after having a baby
