Foundations for Learning

IPCP seamlessly weaves two researched-based curricula to ensure a rich and joyful learning environment in both our Outdoor and Indoor Classrooms: a Nature-Based Curriculum and The Creative Curriculum. 

Nature-Based Curriculum

Our Nature-Based Curriculum was created internally using the North American Environmental Education Association’s Early Childhood Environmental Education Programs: Guidelines for Excellence, and is designed to work alongside the Creative Curriculum. Teachers are committed to extending learning while outdoors, and all IPCP’s classes spend on average 50% of their day outdoors. 

IPCP’s explorations of the outdoors are based on hands-on experiential learning and create opportunities to connect children to the Earth’s rhythms and beauty by involving them in activities related to the different seasons. Creating a sense of wonder, appreciation, and gratitude of all living things, IPCP teachers use a variety of tools and resources to meet the developmental needs of the children, while initiating them into a lifelong, meaningful relationship with the natural world. 

 At IPCP, we fully embrace the Norwegian quote “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes.”

Creative Curriculum

The Creative Curriculum is a play-based curriculum that is designed to support discovery by combining a foundational general knowledge about child development with the knowledge a teacher gains from the relationship they have with each child and family. Nationally known for its forward-thinking and comprehensive model, the Creative Curriculum’s unique approach to teaching and learning not only informs up on how to set up our classroom environment, it helps teachers successfully plan and implement a content-rich, developmentally appropriate program that supports active learning and promotes children’s progress in all developmental areas (social/emotional, physical, language, and cognitive). 

Research aside, children play because it is fun! Play takes many forms, but the heart of play is pleasure. With pleasure comes the powerful drive to repeat such activities; with repetition comes mastery; and mastery brings a sense of accomplishment and confidence.

In the words of Fred Rogers, “Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning.”