Fabiano Family Day Care, Agoura Hills

Teddy Bear Town, established in 1976 as Fabiano Family Child Care is licensed by the state department of social services and complies with all of the standards put forth by the department. The owner/director, Marsha Fabiano has a Masters Degree in Educational Counseling, a P.P.S. Credential, a Bachelor’s in Physical Education, a Minor in Early Childhood Education and Business Administration, Certified in Preschool Education and Directorship of a Preschool. Martha has an AA in Child Development & Psychology. All staff members are CPR and First Aid certified. They also have been fingerprinted and have submitted evidence of freedom from tuberculosis. Teddy Bear Town uses a combination of the Dodge Creative Curriculum for Early Childhood and the Piaget's constructivist theory of child development. The Creative Curriculum approach is based on Diane Trister Dodge's career in working with preschool educators. The approach helps teachers to make their practices consistent with their goals for children by arranging their classrooms to support teachers' developmentally appropriate practice and children's active learning, which is directed toward their social competence. Teachers arrange the learning environment into ten interest areas: art, blocks, cooking, computers, house corner, library corner, music and movement, the outdoors, sand and water and table toys. Piaget theory of child development is based on a classroom that is arranged with discrete, well-equipped interest areas. The children engage in a consistent routine that consists of time for children to play, carry out and reflect on their own learning as well as time to engage in small-and-large group activities. Adults support children's active learning by organizing the environment and establishing a consistent daily routine; establishing a supportive social climate; encouraging children's intentional activities, problem solving, and verbal reflections; planning small-and-large groups learning experiences; and interpreting children's actions in terms of child development. These key experiences are grouped into ten categories: creative representation, language and literacy, initiative and social relations, movement, music, classification, serration, number, space and time. Marsha Fabiano has taken these two wonderful child development specialists and has created a successful self learned curriculum for the teachers and children of Teddy Bear Town. The children are well prepared for traditional elementary school, by recognizing letters and letter sounds, writing the alphabet, their name and numbers. They are also developing reading skills and social skills.