Child care and kindergartens aren’t just places where your children are cared for while you’re at work; there is a lot of learning that goes on in day care and preschools, and they provide the building blocks for your child’s developmental learning.

Even though formal schooling doesn’t begin until the age of five for most children, the years before that, their preschool years, are where their most important and influential learning experiences occur. This is why many day care centres will have specific developmental programs to engage your children in. These framework programs focus on five developmental areas: cognitive development, creative development, language development, physical development and social and emotional development.

Because the most effective learning happens through play experiences, children explore and experiment in a spontaneous way and learn social skills and communication and language skills, with a special focus on numeracy and literacy. Essentially, child day care is preparing children for the more formal school environment by setting up the notion of a routine, and teaching them skills that will help them as they progress through school, and beyond. Child care and developmental programs are incredibly valuable as the beginnings of your child’s learning.