Helping Children Succeed in School and in Life

WCP's Early Learning Center (ELC) is one of the unique support services offered to both resident and community families to help break the cycle of poverty and welfare dependence for the next generation. Approximately 150 children, ages 6 weeks through 12 years, spend 11 1/2 hours daily at WCP's Early Learning Center. The ELC provides high quality early childhood care and education so that children can develop to their highest potential, enter school on time, attain academic success, and become financially and socially self-sufficient.

Nationally Accredited through NAEYC

The Early Learning Center is one of the first centers in the nation to become accredited by NAEYC under its newly reinvented system. The ELC offers an innovative 12-month curriculum with diverse and exciting activities planned throughout the year. The ELC offers many extra curricular activities for its children. Yearly activities include the school age children putting on a science fair for the younger children of the center. The exhibits teach children various science facts from conservation to energy. Another fun yearly activity is the Winter Book Carnival where the children come to enjoy literacy with story characters, face painting, and great food. The ELC has its own choir "Voices of Change," which practices regularly and performs at some of the Park events. The school ages have started a ball room dancing group called the "Twirling Parkers" the children debuted at a local country club.

Camp Ventures

WCP's Camp Ventures Program, initiated in 2005, is an effort to respond to the needs of our enrolled children, and fulfill one of the Park's major objectives, i.e. developing the basic skills critical to the success of our families. Camp Ventures engages children in fun and educational experiences during the long summer months. Our goal is to ensure that the overall summer enrichment experience for children will not only offer fun and informative activities for students, but will also prepare low-income children for academic success, increase social and behavioral skills, and broaden their view of the world.

Literacy Skills Development is the foundation of Camp Ventures enriched through Educational Activities and Experiential Learning.

Camp Ventures incorporates Renaissance Learning's Accelerated Reader for literary skills development, which is being used already in our ELC's School Age Tutoring program that operates during the school year. For the children enrolled in both programs, are offered and extended benefit due to the connectedness of their literacy training between the school year and summer. Accelerated Reader provides the essential practice component of a literacy program, making reading practice fun and exciting for the student, and gives the instructional staff continuous feedback to personalize instruction so every student achieves maximum success. The program yields immediate results that help the staff intervene faster and provide effective instruction during the most critical years of literacy development.

In order to keep interest and participation high, days are broken up into educational activity blocks. Each day of camp, students have opportunities to participate in a variety of educational activities including storytelling, writing stories, acting out plays, attending concerts, and creating art projects. This year we will be partnering with a local theater and creative arts instructional group known as Kuumba Kids, which works with the children to develop skills in the fine arts of theater, dance and music. This year too, we will be haven an artist work with us, to coach the children in the creation of public service announcements; teaching the children how to work with video and film media.

At Camp Ventures, learning extends beyond the classroom to the community with weekly field trips that correspond to themes. The children learn these themes during the literacy component such as; animals, local history, astronomy, or aquatic life. At the end of each week, the students will take a field trip relating to that week's theme. Some of these field trips will include, but not be limited to:

Last year's field trips were very successful and exciting, and the children were treated to a myriad of enriching experiences, exposing them to science, history, and agrarian culture; giving them the experience of the world outside the city. And, it reinforced their literacy skills in the process.

What the Early Learning Center Offers:

 

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