Temple Beth Hillel-Beth El Early Childhood Center

Temple Beth Hillel-Beth El's Early Childhood Center promotes a loving, joyful, inclusive and playful environment that is rich in experiences fostering imagination, curiosity, creativity and independence. Ages 3 months to Kindergarten and Kindergarten Enrichment program. Our classroom model features a balance of child initiated play and teacher guided learning based on Pennsylvania learning standards and each child's own natural curiosity. Play is at the forefront of our educational philosophy. Like Stuart Brown, MD, the founder of the National Institute of Play, we believe that "Nothing lights up a child's brain like play."
The development and practice of social competency skills permeates all aspects of our curriculum. We believe it is important for children to form positive relationships with each other in an atmosphere of respect, caring and appreciation of their own and others' individuality.
Similarly, it is clearly understood that each child is a unique individual with his or her own pace of development. We support Developmentally Appropriate Practice, as defined by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, in which all areas of a child's development (social, emotional, cognitive and physical) are considered equally important and interdependent in the growth of the child. To this end, our teachers strive to provide developmentally appropriate experiences that will help each child to acquire and develop the attributes of curiosity, inventiveness, imagination, responsibility, independence, persistence, engagement and problem solving.
Young children learn by exploring the world around them with a sense of awe. Children naturally exhibit an extraordinary sensitivity to the hidden wonders of what we adults often find to be seemingly ordinary. Our Early Childhood Center is a place that seeks to nurture this sense of awe, as well as the spiritual and ethical dimensions of our children.
Jewish values are at the core of social and educational life in the Early Childhood Center. We strive to give our children the gift of their Jewish heritage as it exists and is experienced both in The United States and in Israel. We enthusiastically approach all that we do by seeing and by experiencing through the lens of Judaism. As teachers, and as a community, we nurture our children in a Jewish environment that will promote a sense of faith, values and ethics from which to draw upon in later years.