Our UPK program here at Bunny Hill is a combination of play based instruction that cultivates the idea of what is known as the Reggio Emilia approach along with the NYCDOE Units of Study. Reggio educators believe strongly in a child with unlimited potential, one who is eager to interact with and contribute to the world. They believe in a child who has a fundamental right to ‘realize and expand their potential’. This is a child who is driven by curiosity and imagination, a capable child who delights in taking responsibility for his or her own learning, a child who listens and is listened to, a child with an enormous need to love and be loved, a child who is valued.

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Emergent lessons at Bunny Hill are based and planned around content that children are intrinsically motivated to learn about. Provocations and Inquiry based projects are used as a means to spark interest through various materials that are natural, recyclable and hand made from the students themselves. Connecting activities, readings ,and the classroom environment itself to the natural world around them allows children to be independent, creating tools of autonomy that create a sense of self-regulation and self-confidence. We believe in allowing children to choose and decipher the direction of their learning through shared decision making with their peers. Bunny Hill educators act as co-learners and ask questions that are open-ended and promote higher order thinking. Our students who are exposed to this approach are better prepared to be complex/critical thinkers, problem solvers with the understanding to be able to describe "how" and "why" things work. 

 

Our community is built on the principles of collaboration, diversity, cultural awareness, teamwork & trust. We develop and continuously teach these foundations so that our young learners then too learn to appreciate the uniqueness, capability and potential in others and themselves. 

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