Early Childhood/HeadStart

The Sheridan Early Childhood Center is a part of the Sheridan School District housing the Head Start, Colorado Preschool Project, and the District’s preschool program for children with disabilities. We hope you will find our website information useful and informative. For more information regarding the programs, please call the office at 720-833-6992.

Mission Statement

• Our center is devoted to understanding the needs of young children and their families in our community.
• We create partnerships with families to enhance child and family development.
  We respond to identified needs by offering choices related to quality education, health care services, parent involvement and social services in a safe and supportive environment

Who We Are

The Sheridan Early Childhood Program currently serves 117 Head Start children and 17 Colorado Preschool Project children. The program also serves as the District’s program for preschool children with disabilities. 50% of our currently enrolled children are English Language Learners.

Of the 117 Head Start children, 32 are enrolled in our full-year, full-day program. That program operates from 6:00 AM until 6:00 PM and operates throughout the year. Those slots are provided to qualifying families who are working or going to school. Only Head Start children are placed in those classrooms, but they are inclusive classrooms having children with disabilities.

The remaining Head Start children are in a part-day, part-year program. Those children attend from 8:15 AM until 2:00 PM five days per week. They attend a traditional school calendar year of approximately 162 days. These classrooms have Head Start children, Colorado Preschool Project children and children with disabilities.

The change from this schedule comes on Wednesdays when part-day, part-year children leave at 1:00 PM. Substitutes are provided for the fd/fy year classrooms for this time. Staff use these afternoons for staff meetings, webbing groups, training, and meeting with Family Service Providers.

Approach to Learning

1. Curriculum

The teachers at the Sheridan Early Childhood Center preschool program use the High/Scope curricular approach in their classrooms.  There are five major components in this curriculum.  The basis for the other four components is Active Learning, through which children construct the knowledge that helps them make sense of their world.  Adult/Child Interactions, the Learning Environment, The Daily Routine and Assessments all form the framework for the child’s growth and development.  This approach to the learning of young children has a great deal of long-range research that supports its use.  Children develop a sense of initiative and pro-social dispositions that positively affect their subsequent learning and life decisions.

2. Modifications

The High/Scope curriculum was adopted by our center because has been developed to meet a range of individual developmental needs.  Our program serves children from age three to five with a variety of needs, including special education services in inclusive classrooms.  We did make modifications in the assessment process that is typically used by those who use High/Scope.  (See assessment below)

3.  Assessment

Curriculum Developmental Continuum. This tool provides the developmental spectrum The Sheridan Early Childhood Center uses an assessment tool called Creative of learning for children ages 3- to 5- years old across four domains, Social/Emotional Development, Physical Development, Cognitive Development and Language Development. Creative Curriculum Developmental Continuum was design by Teaching Strategies based on sound research on young children’s learning and development.  The teachers collect data on children’s progress and learning style through work samples (language, building drawing and writing) and observations of children’s play.  This information is then used to plan learning opportunities for children to progress throughout the Continuum.  The teachers use data, from the Creative Curriculum Developmental Continuum, Denver II – screening instrument, and family input, to gather information on children’s learning styles and strengths to create curriculum plans to meet each child’s individual needs as well as the group as a whole.  

Creative Curriculum has linked their assessment tool to Head Start Outcomes and the program provides a Body of Evidence of the skills the children demonstrate as they enter kindergarten and as they leave pre-kindergarten.

4. Individualization

Classroom teachers are required to write individual strategies for use with students as they prepare their lesson plans.  The needs addressed may be developed from the teachers observations, work samples, family information, Child Study process or the child’s I.E.P.

5. Links to pre-k standards

The curriculum and assessment tools used at the Sheridan Early Childhood Center are directly linked to Colorado Building Blocks and Head Start Child Outcomes.