Every day at Yikes Tikes! children engage in fun and challenging activities designed to help them grow. A typical day at Yikes Tikes! follows this general structure:

• Group and individual play. Children arrive with their parents socialize and play with their peers in the presence of their parents. During this time, the teacher provides informal practical training to parents to help parents learn positive play-based tools designed to aid their child’s social and emotional development.
• Circle time. Once parents have left the classroom, the group sits in a circle and the teacher leads the group in activities designed to develop language and pre-literacy skills, such as singing, storytelling and book reading.
• Fine motor activity. Development of fine motor skills has been shown to enhance the cognitive and attention skills required for kindergarten success. Each session includes a fine motor activity created to develop the coordination between the eyes and the small muscles in the hands and fingers, increase exposure to new sensorimotor inputs, and promote attention and focus.
• Snack. Snack time provides the teacher with the opportunity to promote valuable social and emotional skills such as sharing, turn taking, table manners, etc.
• Movement and gross motor activities. Gross motor ability has been shown to impact academic performance and social-emotional maturity as it is correlated with working memory, processing speed and self-confidence. Our program aims to promote gross motor development by providing movement activities designed by Occupational Therapists in an indoor gym. These activities foster development of balance, coordination, spatial awareness, muscle tone and flexibility through dancing, swinging, sliding, dangling, lifting, running, jumping and climbing.
• Reading. Storytelling and retelling, reading for pleasure, repeated readings of favorite stories, and interactive story reading have been shown to positively affect pre-literacy skills and increase reading comprehension. Moreover, research shows that when reading activities take place in a group setting the overall reading comprehension of each child increases. Our program includes group reading activities to support the development of pre-literacy skills.
• Goodbye circle. Each session concludes with an ending circle where children discuss the day’s activities, bid farewell to one another and prepare to greet their parents. Learning appropriate behavior for transition periods is an important social-emotional skill for kindergarten and beyond.