"It's easier to build strong children than to repair broken men." ~ Frederick Douglass
Additional Services Included
Potty-training Assistance
We are happy to help with your child's potty-training experience once they are reliably succeeding at home with it.
Let Lindsay know when you believe your child is ready and she'll create a plan together with you to best provide support here (please remember to create a plan with Lindsay first so our entire staff can understand the steps we're taking with your child ahead of drop-off, thanks)!
Markers of readiness that we look for first
We are happy to help with your child's potty-training experience once they are reliably succeeding at home with it.
Let Lindsay know when you believe your child is ready and she'll create a plan together with you to best provide support here (please remember to create a plan with Lindsay first so our entire staff can understand the steps we're taking with your child ahead of drop-off, thanks)!
Markers of readiness that we look for first
- an interest in the toilet
- holding it in for longer periods of time
- being able to follow teacher instructions
- getting upset/asking for help with accidents
Progress Reports & Newsletters
We send bi-annual progress reports, typically in April and November, in which we email our families with updates and input on how your child is doing, goals we're working on -or struggles the child is having and what we're doing to support them- progress we're seeing, the child's particular interests, friends, favorite parts of the school day, etc., so your family has a log of how your child is thriving and growing at Happy Steps. Lindsay also sends a monthly newsletter for the month ahead, and Hannah sends a newsletter at the end of the month to her toddler families about the fun activities they enjoyed that month!
We send bi-annual progress reports, typically in April and November, in which we email our families with updates and input on how your child is doing, goals we're working on -or struggles the child is having and what we're doing to support them- progress we're seeing, the child's particular interests, friends, favorite parts of the school day, etc., so your family has a log of how your child is thriving and growing at Happy Steps. Lindsay also sends a monthly newsletter for the month ahead, and Hannah sends a newsletter at the end of the month to her toddler families about the fun activities they enjoyed that month!
Annual Social Events
Lindsay hosts a free date night for parents on a weekend in fall and the children get to come in pajamas for a few hours in the evening and enjoy dinner, games and prizes, and a fun evening of playing together outside of our normal school curriculum.
Lindsay hosts a free potluck at our local park and pavilion on a weekend in spring or summer for families to come and share food and playground fun, and get to know each other a little better!
Lindsay hosts a free date night for parents on a weekend in fall and the children get to come in pajamas for a few hours in the evening and enjoy dinner, games and prizes, and a fun evening of playing together outside of our normal school curriculum.
Lindsay hosts a free potluck at our local park and pavilion on a weekend in spring or summer for families to come and share food and playground fun, and get to know each other a little better!
Our Philosophies
Supporting Your Child
The foundation of care provided at Happy Steps Preschool is based on love and empathy. Children thrive in environments that are full of love, patience, joy, creativity, fun, attention, warmth, and consistency. Children also need routines, experiences that expand their understanding of the world and encourage the exploration of their (safe) environments, and people in their lives who show them regularly that they are valued, competent, trustworthy, respected, and loved. This is how children come to believe these things about themselves! And this is how children get their best first start. Therefore, we spend a lot of time playing and laughing, exploring arts and crafts, sensory play, STEM activities, enjoying nature and outside play, exploring our curriculum activities and lessons (phonics, writing, math, Spanish, etc.), reading new books along the interest lines of the children in care and our monthly themes, and learning to be kind, reliable, and friendly with each other. There's a strong emphasis here on developing positive self-esteem, healthy self-soothing techniques, and respectful relationships with others.
Developing Empathy and Healthy Boundaries
One of the strongest and most crucial aspects of a healthy foundation for a child's future, their healthy self-esteem, and healthy relationships throughout their life is caring about others along with one's own well-being. Learning teamwork, conflict resolution skills, and altruism. We teach the children to care compassionately for each other, and for themselves, to communicate openly, and to recognize and respect each other's boundaries and needs. This comes up in most of our social interactions, emotional experiences, and even just day-to-day playing, talking, and bonding. We aim to foster healthy and secure attachment styles by teaching respect, self-love, and kindness!
Our Curriculum
Our play-based curriculum is a blended and fluid one, as the ages in our group fluctuate, and so do the interests of the children. It's based on the philosophy that children learn best through experimenting, imagining, practicing, repeating, and playing! We base our curriculum on the understanding that children need to feel trusted and adequate in completing age-appropriate tasks, as well, and that they learn best when they're curious and joyful in their experience. Children learn and grow through hands-on play and exploration, through being encouraged to try new things, through observing and interacting with their peers, learning healthy forms of communication, developing conflict resolution skills, discovering art, and exploring their own naturally creative instincts, building, and so much more. Happy Steps aims to facilitate these experiences regularly as part of an enriching day at school.
We also provide a developmentally-appropriate curriculum to encourage the learning of the alphabet, phonics, writing, math skills, Spanish, vocabulary, puzzles, and so much more. Read more about our activities, lessons, and schedule down below!
Why Small Group, Home-Based Child Care is Best
Small group care in school is an extremely important facet of young children having their needs met. After having been a Head Start teacher and an infant room teacher, I have seen beyond a shadow of a doubt that children do not thrive as well in child care centers and preschools that max out the teacher-student ratio. Most centers and schools in Eugene have 18-20+ kids in a small room, with two teachers (or 2 teachers to 8 crying infants/ 1 teacher with 10 toddlers). This leaves a lot of babies and children fighting for attention, and struggling to receive the time, affection, and nurturing they need and deserve.
At Happy Steps, this is minimized by our smaller ratio of children to care providers.
It's also much healthier and more consistent for your child to have the option of being in my home-based school (with friends their age who also stick around until kindergarten) for years, rather than moving from one classroom and teacher/care provider to the next, every few months, as is done in big centers.
No Bullying Policy
For the well-being of all the children in our program, and the emotional stability we provide throughout the day, if a child is found to have bullying behaviors, and are intentionally trying to hurt/harm/upset other children or staff, we will notify the family and discuss a plan to work on their actions, possible root cause(s), and needs of the child, to overcome the bullying and help them adjust to our program.
We typically allow a month to work on this together. Some behaviors may not be able to be addressed in that amount of time. If the behaviors are too severe, the family may be asked to immediately place their child elsewhere. If you suspect this will apply to your child, Happy Steps may not be the right program for your family.
If our plan is unsuccessful within the estimated time frame, the family will be notified that their child will need to be moved to a different program. If we see enough progress in the right direction, we may continue to work on the plan to end the bullying and integrate the child into our program. We want all children to feel safe and loved!
This helps us ensure that families know their child is in a safe and supportive environment, here at Happy Steps.
Thank you for understanding!
Healthy Food
Nutrition is a critical component in having our healthiest, happiest days! Lindsay has a two year diploma in medicinal herbs and holistic health, has aced every nutrition course at Lane Community College, and has been reading about nutrition for the last 25 years. Meals here at Happy Steps -breakfast, lunch, and snack- are mostly organic, with a focus on fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains instead of processed, low sodium and low sugar, with proteins like eggs, cheese, yogurt, beans, chicken, turkey, cottage cheese (and split peas, lentils, and quinoa for children who eat them).
Happy Steps also happily accommodates vegans, gluten-free families, and food allergies.
A typical breakfast here: Oatmeal/scrambled eggs, blueberries, milk.
A typical lunch here: Grilled cheese sandwich, black beans/chicken, green salad, steamed carrots, milk.
A typical snack here: Yogurt with apple slices, water.
We currently have children with severe food allergies and do not allow outside food on the premises, thank you!
Guidance & Discipline
Children at Happy Steps are guided using redirection, reflective listening, I messages, and brainstorming solutions to conflicts. Time out is typically not used, but a safety break or calm down break might be given. If a child is becoming a threat to other children or otherwise clearly needs to take a minute to calm down and feel better, they may sit off to the side of the group, snuggle on the couch with a blanket, or go to the table for a project they can enjoy alone. Being able to attend to the individual needs of each child is why Happy Steps is a small group preschool; we do that with love and emotional support, not shame. Furthermore, physical punishment is not an option and Happy Steps is a mandated reporter of child abuse and neglect.
This is how we shape happy hearts and great minds!
Happy Steps is a home-based preschool program for toddlers through pre-k children. Our program is designed to give your child their best start, before entering the public school system.
Young children learn best through play, hands-on activities, exploring their inherent interests, developing healthy emotional responses to their peers and caregivers, and experiencing open and respectful conversations. Our program is play-based, therefore, and geared toward helping each child develop healthy self-esteem, positive conflict resolution skills, strong communication skills, healthy boundaries, and altruistic empathy for others. We enjoy a variety of activities that are meant for learning via play, exploration, imagination, and newfound confidence, and that aim to mutually strengthen all areas of a child's development: physical (gross and fine motor skills), cognitive, language, social, and emotional/behavorial.
Academic pursuits such as completing worksheets and memorizing information are not developmentally-appropriate for toddlers and preschoolers. However, because kindergarten has become academically oriented, we do spend time teaching academic subjects - in a fun way, geared toward the learning styles of each child. We have circle time each day that demonstrates the alphabet and phonics, reading and writing, numbers and counting, colors, shapes, days of the week, weather, holidays, topics supporting our monthly themes, and more! And we teach these in Spanish, as well. Children who are ready, practice writing and reading to the group.
When children show an interest in these topics, they are encouraged -never forced- to learn more. So, most of our children learn to write and read, to count and conduct basic math, to understand the calendar, and more, before entering kindergarten. The younger children naturally and quickly pick these things up from their older peers! And they thrive, having learned these things in a fun and supportive environment. (Our older students tend to learn patience, empathy, respectful communication styles, and kindness in their interactions with younger children.)
Outside of this academic support, we provide a multitude of activities for learning through play and sensory experiences: painting, puzzles, play dough and clay, music and dance, sensory bins, beading and threading, cut and paste, gross motor activities, building with engineering toys and magnet tiles, block play, story time, outside play in our large fenced yard, gardening, and more. We use each activity to also be a resource for teaching moments, so your child gets the most out of their time, here.
Happy Steps Preschool has been supporting families since 2002 and is designed to be FOR the children.
Because happier and healthier children is how we create a happier and healthier future for all of us. Here's to them!
The foundation of care provided at Happy Steps Preschool is based on love and empathy. Children thrive in environments that are full of love, patience, joy, creativity, fun, attention, warmth, and consistency. Children also need routines, experiences that expand their understanding of the world and encourage the exploration of their (safe) environments, and people in their lives who show them regularly that they are valued, competent, trustworthy, respected, and loved. This is how children come to believe these things about themselves! And this is how children get their best first start. Therefore, we spend a lot of time playing and laughing, exploring arts and crafts, sensory play, STEM activities, enjoying nature and outside play, exploring our curriculum activities and lessons (phonics, writing, math, Spanish, etc.), reading new books along the interest lines of the children in care and our monthly themes, and learning to be kind, reliable, and friendly with each other. There's a strong emphasis here on developing positive self-esteem, healthy self-soothing techniques, and respectful relationships with others.
Developing Empathy and Healthy Boundaries
One of the strongest and most crucial aspects of a healthy foundation for a child's future, their healthy self-esteem, and healthy relationships throughout their life is caring about others along with one's own well-being. Learning teamwork, conflict resolution skills, and altruism. We teach the children to care compassionately for each other, and for themselves, to communicate openly, and to recognize and respect each other's boundaries and needs. This comes up in most of our social interactions, emotional experiences, and even just day-to-day playing, talking, and bonding. We aim to foster healthy and secure attachment styles by teaching respect, self-love, and kindness!
Our Curriculum
Our play-based curriculum is a blended and fluid one, as the ages in our group fluctuate, and so do the interests of the children. It's based on the philosophy that children learn best through experimenting, imagining, practicing, repeating, and playing! We base our curriculum on the understanding that children need to feel trusted and adequate in completing age-appropriate tasks, as well, and that they learn best when they're curious and joyful in their experience. Children learn and grow through hands-on play and exploration, through being encouraged to try new things, through observing and interacting with their peers, learning healthy forms of communication, developing conflict resolution skills, discovering art, and exploring their own naturally creative instincts, building, and so much more. Happy Steps aims to facilitate these experiences regularly as part of an enriching day at school.
We also provide a developmentally-appropriate curriculum to encourage the learning of the alphabet, phonics, writing, math skills, Spanish, vocabulary, puzzles, and so much more. Read more about our activities, lessons, and schedule down below!
Why Small Group, Home-Based Child Care is Best
Small group care in school is an extremely important facet of young children having their needs met. After having been a Head Start teacher and an infant room teacher, I have seen beyond a shadow of a doubt that children do not thrive as well in child care centers and preschools that max out the teacher-student ratio. Most centers and schools in Eugene have 18-20+ kids in a small room, with two teachers (or 2 teachers to 8 crying infants/ 1 teacher with 10 toddlers). This leaves a lot of babies and children fighting for attention, and struggling to receive the time, affection, and nurturing they need and deserve.
At Happy Steps, this is minimized by our smaller ratio of children to care providers.
It's also much healthier and more consistent for your child to have the option of being in my home-based school (with friends their age who also stick around until kindergarten) for years, rather than moving from one classroom and teacher/care provider to the next, every few months, as is done in big centers.
No Bullying Policy
For the well-being of all the children in our program, and the emotional stability we provide throughout the day, if a child is found to have bullying behaviors, and are intentionally trying to hurt/harm/upset other children or staff, we will notify the family and discuss a plan to work on their actions, possible root cause(s), and needs of the child, to overcome the bullying and help them adjust to our program.
We typically allow a month to work on this together. Some behaviors may not be able to be addressed in that amount of time. If the behaviors are too severe, the family may be asked to immediately place their child elsewhere. If you suspect this will apply to your child, Happy Steps may not be the right program for your family.
If our plan is unsuccessful within the estimated time frame, the family will be notified that their child will need to be moved to a different program. If we see enough progress in the right direction, we may continue to work on the plan to end the bullying and integrate the child into our program. We want all children to feel safe and loved!
This helps us ensure that families know their child is in a safe and supportive environment, here at Happy Steps.
Thank you for understanding!
Healthy Food
Nutrition is a critical component in having our healthiest, happiest days! Lindsay has a two year diploma in medicinal herbs and holistic health, has aced every nutrition course at Lane Community College, and has been reading about nutrition for the last 25 years. Meals here at Happy Steps -breakfast, lunch, and snack- are mostly organic, with a focus on fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains instead of processed, low sodium and low sugar, with proteins like eggs, cheese, yogurt, beans, chicken, turkey, cottage cheese (and split peas, lentils, and quinoa for children who eat them).
Happy Steps also happily accommodates vegans, gluten-free families, and food allergies.
A typical breakfast here: Oatmeal/scrambled eggs, blueberries, milk.
A typical lunch here: Grilled cheese sandwich, black beans/chicken, green salad, steamed carrots, milk.
A typical snack here: Yogurt with apple slices, water.
We currently have children with severe food allergies and do not allow outside food on the premises, thank you!
Guidance & Discipline
Children at Happy Steps are guided using redirection, reflective listening, I messages, and brainstorming solutions to conflicts. Time out is typically not used, but a safety break or calm down break might be given. If a child is becoming a threat to other children or otherwise clearly needs to take a minute to calm down and feel better, they may sit off to the side of the group, snuggle on the couch with a blanket, or go to the table for a project they can enjoy alone. Being able to attend to the individual needs of each child is why Happy Steps is a small group preschool; we do that with love and emotional support, not shame. Furthermore, physical punishment is not an option and Happy Steps is a mandated reporter of child abuse and neglect.
This is how we shape happy hearts and great minds!
Happy Steps is a home-based preschool program for toddlers through pre-k children. Our program is designed to give your child their best start, before entering the public school system.
Young children learn best through play, hands-on activities, exploring their inherent interests, developing healthy emotional responses to their peers and caregivers, and experiencing open and respectful conversations. Our program is play-based, therefore, and geared toward helping each child develop healthy self-esteem, positive conflict resolution skills, strong communication skills, healthy boundaries, and altruistic empathy for others. We enjoy a variety of activities that are meant for learning via play, exploration, imagination, and newfound confidence, and that aim to mutually strengthen all areas of a child's development: physical (gross and fine motor skills), cognitive, language, social, and emotional/behavorial.
Academic pursuits such as completing worksheets and memorizing information are not developmentally-appropriate for toddlers and preschoolers. However, because kindergarten has become academically oriented, we do spend time teaching academic subjects - in a fun way, geared toward the learning styles of each child. We have circle time each day that demonstrates the alphabet and phonics, reading and writing, numbers and counting, colors, shapes, days of the week, weather, holidays, topics supporting our monthly themes, and more! And we teach these in Spanish, as well. Children who are ready, practice writing and reading to the group.
When children show an interest in these topics, they are encouraged -never forced- to learn more. So, most of our children learn to write and read, to count and conduct basic math, to understand the calendar, and more, before entering kindergarten. The younger children naturally and quickly pick these things up from their older peers! And they thrive, having learned these things in a fun and supportive environment. (Our older students tend to learn patience, empathy, respectful communication styles, and kindness in their interactions with younger children.)
Outside of this academic support, we provide a multitude of activities for learning through play and sensory experiences: painting, puzzles, play dough and clay, music and dance, sensory bins, beading and threading, cut and paste, gross motor activities, building with engineering toys and magnet tiles, block play, story time, outside play in our large fenced yard, gardening, and more. We use each activity to also be a resource for teaching moments, so your child gets the most out of their time, here.
Happy Steps Preschool has been supporting families since 2002 and is designed to be FOR the children.
Because happier and healthier children is how we create a happier and healthier future for all of us. Here's to them!
Eco-Friendly Focus
Some of the ways in which we teach eco-friendly living include
- cutting back on consumerism of plastics
- being careful about how much trash we make
- teaching our students about composting and gardening
- reusing and recycling
- using recycled paper and cardboard
- purchasing plastic-free/tree-free bamboo toilet paper and paper towels
- often using washcloths in place of paper towels
- teaching where our food comes from and why to eat organically
- encouraging a fascination and love of wildlife, insects, and nature,
- and much more
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