The Kids Inc. community-staff, children and parents-work together to provide an environment that supports children in a positive, holistic way. Together we support the physical, social and emotional development of our children. Curriculum at Kids Inc. is structured to allow children to learn through play while providing an environment that that honors their lifestyles and strives to be culturally relevant. It is a rich and exciting environment where each child is seen as an individual and each family as part of our community. The following are areas of development emphasized at Kids Inc.:

• Helping children to define and talk about how they feel.
  Staff help children learn to recognize different feelings by offering to help them express their feelings.
• Independence and self-motivation are important for positive self-esteem.
  When asking children: “What do you want?” or “How can I help you?” the process of helping children to take responsibility for themselves begins.
• Developing the environment so that it reflects diverse cultures and is representative of the cultures of the program.
  Staff and director include communication with families and results from the family survey regarding their cultural backgrounds to help model diversity and inclusion for all children and families.

The Environment at Kids Inc
The programming at Kids Inc. allows children to learn through their play and as they play they assimilate their daily experiences. We encourage empathy and sensitivity, model proactive behavior and encourage global thinking. An important part of this is coaching children in effective communication and teaching how to recognize negative peer pressure and how to seek positive conflict resolution. The understanding of these experiences is necessary for strong and healthy physical, emotional and mental development. Activities are developed to meet the needs of the individual child and are placed in the room to invite the child to experience learning. Our teachers are available to assist children and to help them experience growth through art, music, stories, language, math and the sciences. The curriculum at Kids Inc. is non-religious; the activities are chosen to complement the work children are doing in their classrooms and to support Seattle School District Learning Standards and ERLS.

We continually strive to ensure a culturally relevant, anti-bias environment for our children.
In keeping with this philosophy, it is our policy to expose our children to cultures represented in our program and cultures that surround us in our daily living. We strive to acknowledge traditions that are observed in the homes of our families. We do so in a nonreligious manner.

The physical growth of children at Kids Inc. is very important.
Tactile experiences are necessary for development of motor skills. Children at Kids Inc. experience playing with sand, water, play dough, finger paint, pottery, gardening, woodworking, etc. They are encouraged to play outdoors. We engage children in a variety of sports and outdoor games to encourage their physical development and endurance.

Kids Inc. believes that children learn through play. Children are encouraged to play both independently and with each other, developing their imagination, social skills and self-esteem. Child directed and teacher directed activities are selected to encourage children to discover new ways to play.

Children are asked to take care of their physical space and to respect their environment. Games and toys are to be used in the way they were designed. They are to be put away after children are done with them. Parents are asked to help support clean up by always asking if they have put away the materials they were using before they leave. Parents can also be helpful by waiting for children to finish cleaning up their space or helping their child clean up.