MARS is an Dual Language (English/Spanish) Early Learning Academy that takes an approach to learning and development which incorporates areas of Mathematics, Arts, Reading (Literacy), and Science/Social Studies. Play is a fun and important part of children’s learning and development. Through our MARS activities children will:
• Ask questions, explore, and build skills and theories about their world
• Utilize problem solving skills individually and work with others to solve problems.
• Think creatively and critically to develop their imagination.
• Engage in what they are learning at their own pace.
Our mission: Is to provide a creative way to provide family engagement and work with children from 6 weeks through 5 years to prepare them for a successful transition to kindergarten. This early learning model is designed to address the educational needs for all students with a specialized emphasis towards students of color and students living in poverty. The enhancement model provides learning environments that foster pride in and knowledge about their culture, contributions and competence throughout history and the world for children.
Our Philosophy: We, at MARS Early Learning Academy are dedicated and committed to your children by providing exceptional education. It is our philosophy to focus on the needs of the individual child by providing a stimulating atmosphere for learning along with a secure loving environment. It is our belief that a school should be an extension of each child's family. Our teachers and parents are encouraged to work together to provide the love and support needed as your child reaches developmental milestones and his/her own personal achievements! We are passionate about education and providing our children with the tools to be successful in life.
Our Core Values:
- Caring: Children in our care are nurtured, encouraged and treated with compassion.
- Community: Our families share, build relationships and contribute to our Academy and our local community.
- Inclusion: We respect and embrace multiculturalism, diversity, difference and fairness.
- Quality: Our educators aim to build genuine connections with children, families, and community
All staff undergo a rigorous screening to make sure they are capable and qualified to teach your child.
When children begin their journey at MARS Early Learning Academy, they bring with them knowledge and experiences about numbers, shapes. Using manipulatives, pictures, stories, poems, songs, and rhymes, our educators create in class math enrichment and high engagement that teaches concepts without using textbooks, a numeracy-rich environment that builds on children’s prior knowledge. Our teacher-directed activities illustrate concepts and skills being taught while child-directed activities provide opportunities for children to explore, practice, and extend their understanding independently or within a small group.
Our Toddler Early Math program focuses on Colors, Numbers and Number Sense, Shapes, Spatial Relationships, Measurement, Sorting, and Simple Patterns.
Our Preschool Early Math include Number and Numeration, Operations and Computation, Data and Chance, Measurement, Geometry, Patterns, Function & Algebra.
A creative mindset is important as scientist need to innovate and solve problems creatively. Visual Arts, Music, Dance and Drama provide children with opportunities to express themselves by way of a creative outlet.
Our Arts Curriculum:
The Creative Curriculum – Literacy
The M.A.R.S. curriculum incorporates the latest best practices that support children’s language and vocabulary:
Our early learning educators will effectively boost reading development and design developmentally appropriate, literary-focused classrooms that encourage children to engage regularly with literacy concepts. The curriculum articulates strategies that help teachers develop emergent literacy and language skills of English language learners. Teachers will learn how to gauge the level of support to assist a child’s learning, and how and when to more actively engage families in their child’s literacy development.
Children are natural scientists, and they discover how the world works by making predictions, observing, and carrying out experiments. They build theories to explain what they see and collect data to test those theories. They began to think “outside the box” as they engage in fun, hands-on engaging learning experiences. Some of the topics include:
Social Studies
MARS ELA provides children with their first sense of community outside the home. Social Studies learning begins as your child makes his/her first friends and participates in decision-making. Topics such as, All About Me, My Family, Friendship, Safety, Manners, Feelings and Emotions are introduced early in your child’s learning.
The critical purpose of these experts is to provide STEM training to the M.A.R.S. ELA teachers so they can implement it into the daily curriculum as well as provide monthly and quarterly project sessions to the students and families. The teachers will work with M.A.R.S. ELA Monday - Friday.
Technology for children includes the integration of tools that are used to support children’s work including clipboards, scissors, magnifying glasses, eye droppers, and drawing materials (crayons, paint brushes, markers, colored pencils) etc. Simple tools such as pulleys, ramps, wheels, and levers are also incorporated in your child’s classroom and supports children’s cognitive development.
Engineering is a natural part of our everyday early learning and it is the process by which young children discover how things in their world are built and how they work. Whether children are building with different sized blocks, constructing a railroad track, or experimenting with a marble run, they are problem solving and acting as engineers. Our educators guide our young thinkers to identify problems, build plans, test ideas, and share their discoveries.