Purple Circle Day Care Center Inc

The Purple Circle Early Childhood Program has been serving its communities for almost fifty years providing access to high quality early childhood care and education. We provide low-income and moderate-income families both full and part-time, and five days a week program to support families in our community, ensuring working parents have equitable and excellent early childhood education and care. During the COVID19 pandemic, financial challenges of low-income and moderate-income families have increased, and working families are being challenged by the lack of access to infant care and early childhood education. Women are dropping out of the workforce to provide care for their children. There is a tremendous need for high quality infant and toddler care.

Responding to these needs, we are expanding our current preschool program to infants and young toddlers. With the expansion, our program will serve a maximum 68 children: 16 infants, 23 toddlers, 15 preschoolers, and 14 Pre-Kindergarteners. Purple Circle fosters children's development through a play-based, child-centered approach that supports each child as a unique and interesting individual. Expanding our preschool program to include infants and toddlers will provide the community uninterrupted access to a continuity of care through the preschool years. The program includes as young as 3months old infants and up to 5 years of age which will create stability for children and families.

The program’s mission is to provide high quality care and a relationship-based responsive program for young infants and toddlers that emphasizes the importance of consistent, respectful and meaningful connections between children and primary care teachers.

Our program fosters children's development through a play-based, child-centered approach that supports each child as a unique and interesting individual. The emphasis is also on developing a sense of trust between teacher, child and family. The partnership between families and teachers is essential to the preservation of children’s play. Trust provides a springboard for children to venture out into exploring the opportunities provided for them in a play-based environment. Through these opportunities, young children are seen and supported as individual thinkers and learners.

Our exceptional student to teacher ratio affords teachers time to observe all children closely in order to know them as the unique individuals that they are and in their unique styles of learning. Children’s questions and ideas are an essential part of curriculum planning. Investigation occurs through a variety of mediums, such as painting, clay, music, literature, block building and dramatic activity. Classrooms are designed to encourage all types of learning. Instead of feeding children a set of facts, we take their daily discoveries and questions, and explore them in depth. When the curriculum is tailored to meet the individual’s strengths and interests, and the environment supports this, the children come to see themselves as capable thinkers and learners, making sense of and imagining the world around them. The social environment of the classroom encourages and supports cooperation, sharing ideas and working together.

Collaboration, child development and culture are essential elements of our curriculum. The teachers develop and expand curriculum in partnership with children and their families. They incorporate children’s ideas, interests and inquiry, discuss curriculum with families, and invite families into the classroom. Throughout the day, teachers ask thought provoking questions, listen carefully to children’s answers and in all interactions let children know that their ideas and investigations are important. In the children’s work and active exploration of their social and physical world, children make connections to language, literacy, mathematics, science, social studies and the arts. Our program is steeped in teacher observation for the purpose of understanding the individual child and how the child makes meaning of their environment.

Our teachers observe and document what children play about, how they choose and use materials, what they talk about, where they feel most at ease, and what their misconceptions and wonders are. Looking at children and reflecting on what teachers notice creates an attitude or way of looking that attends to children with care. Families are also invited to share observations of their children at home and what they know of their child’s development. These observations are collected over time and a Descriptive Review is prepared by the teachers to share with their family at the end of the school year.
The Descriptive Review is a form of assessment that describes the child within five headings:

Physical Presence and Gesture
Disposition and Temperament
Connections to Children and Adults
Interests and Preferences
Modes of Thinking and Learning

In addition to the Descriptive Review, the quality of our programs are measured based on our exceptional ratio of teacher to student. Below is the comparison between our programs and the requirements of New York City Department of Health:

Age Group
Purple Circle Early Childhood Programs
Department of Health
3 months to 12 Months
1:3
1:4
12 Months to 24 Months
1:3
1:5
2-3 Years Old
1:3
1:6
3-4 Years Old
1:4
1:10
4-5 Years Old
1:5
1:12

Purple Circle has identified a new location that requires renovation to meet New York City structural requirements, Department of Health requirements and capital reserve imposed by the building owner. Construction is currently underway and is expected to be completed by the end of January 2021. Purple Circle expects to open its doors to include infants and mobile infants by March 2021.

Purple Circle Day Care Center has been serving its community for almost fifty years giving great opportunities for quality care and learning across a diverse population. Expanding our preschool program to include infants and toddlers will provide the community uninterrupted access to a continuity of care through the preschool years. The program includes children as young as 3 months old and up to 5 years of age which will create a stability for children and families.