The caterpillar group is our youngest preschool class, with children aged just 14 months to 2 years. We offer your young toddler a home away from home that is filled with daily opportunities for fun, creative expression, early peer socialization, and loving care for your little one.

Caterpillars join us when they are still very young and may be making the break away from mummy for the first time. We respect your child’s feelings and handle the many life changes that they are experiencing at this time with sensitivity and understanding.

Essential Information

Caterpillars attend from 8:45am until 1:45pm, which includes a one-hour rest time

We have afterschool classes and extension periods available for children who are completely settled;
Breakfast Club - 8:00am to 8:45
Afternoon - 1:45am until 5.00

Parents of Caterpillars have the option of enrolling their children for 2, 3, 4 or 5 days per week. We have found over the years that children two attend 3 or more days/week have the easiest transitions and truly thrive in the consistency of their predictable schedule.

Unless there is a dietary concern, all of the Caterpillar children enjoy the specially prepared snack and lunch menus of the school’s caterer: Kiwi Kitchen. The options are both delicious and healthy and rotate on two week revolving schedule to ensure that the children never grow tired of their meals.

Our Teachers
The value of the bond between teacher and child is key to a child’s happiness at school. The key components of the Caterpillar class are love, attention and care and these things are only possible because of our dedicated, patient and loving teachers and staff. We strive for the Caterpillar class to be the first of many happy, successful educational environments in a child’s life that will result in a love of learning and an excitement to attend school!

We hand pick our KSpace teachers carefully with your child’s needs in mind. Senior members of the Caterpillar team have been with the program for 8+ years and nearly all team members are bilingual if not trilingual! Over the years we have collaborated to bring the very best of our international experiences with children to fine tune the Caterpillar day into the successful, fun program that it is today.

Ratios
Our teacher to child ratio always remains at or below 1:4, with a maximum of 12 children and 3 teachers in a class on any given day.

Caterpillar Timetable
8:45 Welcome and Drop-Off Time: Parents get an opportunity to catch up with the teachers and pass any information that they need to. Children enjoy seeing their friends and getting ready for their day.

9:00 Circle Time with our Chrysalis Friends: This is a special period when children get the chance to join their peers and friends from the older two-year-old class. We have fabulous fun carrying out animal yoga, exercises, stretching and dancing against a musical backdrop. Children in Caterpillar learn and love all of our Kokomo songs, which reinforce numbers, colours, days of the week and concepts like up & down and loud & quiet. Cds with all the wonderful Caterpillar songs on are available to help support learning at home and parents are given song lyric/ theme sheets too.

9:30 Snack Time: We all sit down and ensure we have a light snack to keep us happy. Children love to sit together and it is a great chance for us to tell little jokes, talk about what we are going to do next and sing little songs. Our caterer provides the yummy snacks!

9:45 Creative Development or Cookery: Caterpillar art is great fun and the children get completely immersed in their craft-time. Large areas of the classroom are prepared for the team so that the children can really enjoy the feeling of the materials and the effects that they make. We recycle, collect natural products and use many different mediums to work from. The Caterpillars experience working with paints, pastels, pencils, clay, nendo, papier-mâché and everything you can think of! They use their hands, feet, brushes, cloths, sponges and many more age appropriate utensils. Cookery is a real pleasure for children of this age and we are sure that mummy and daddy enjoy seeing the photos on our newsletters of what we prepare, and also eating the food we occasionally send home!

10:15 Nappy/Diaper Change # 1: The children are monitored constantly for soiled nappies and we of course keep them clean and dry regardless of what stage in the day it is. Having additional fixed nappy times helps us plan quiet activities for that timeslot and allows the children who are ready for toilet training assistance to become used to a routine.

10:30 Daily Gym Time/Weekly Park Trip: The children love to let off steam and gym time can take many forms; lots of chasing and tag games, stretching and animal yoga, obstacle courses with the gym equipment, as well as ball and bean bag games. There is an area of the gym that is designated and equipped for portable nappy changes during this time. We also lay out large courses for balance skills on the roof and the children enjoy mini-road safety courses too. In good weather we play under our sun awning and enjoy LOTS of water play, bubbles, sand pits and other seasonal fun. Once per week we take a trip to the park in our amazing red Kiddy Karts – parents are often invited to join! Children of this age group enjoy the ride inside the karts and we sing and have great fun on the way there and back.

11:00 Lunch Time: Yippee it’s time for the best lunch in Tokyo! We eat deliciously healthy gourmet food, prepared by Kiwi Kitchens. (Mums and nutritionists design all of the menus!) Lunchtime is also a wonderful opportunity for us to practice our motor skills and sing our ‘Super Manners’ song! In warm weather we often love to take a picnic onto the rooftop and play there for a while afterwards. Sometimes mummy can join us too!

11:25 Nappy/Diaper Change #2

11:30 Productive Play Time: Several centers are set up around the room and the children are encouraged to attend to an activity for a few minutes before exploring something else in the room. The dramatic play corner, the play dough table, the library steps and the rhythm areas are a few of the Caterpillars’ favourite ways to spend this self-exploration time. As the two-year-old Chrysalis children finish eating their lunches, the groups merge once again for music, rhythm and rhymes. The children especially love this time when we bring out the guitars and ukulele!

11:50 Quiet Story Time: The teachers work together to provide a quiet, relaxing environment for the children to hear a few stories before nap time. Any children with particular napping routines are attended to at this time.

12:00 Cocoon Club Nap Time: All of the children snuggle down on their mat in the sensory room for a nice snooze after a full morning of learning and fun. Children who resist sleep will be given books to look at and encouraged to enjoy some quiet time while their friends nap.

1:00 Wake Up, Nappy Time #3, Snack Time: We gently wake up the children, check their nappies, and give them their small snack from home.

1:15 Rise & Shine Sing Song Time: We combine two of the children's favourite things: story books and music during this time to wake up their brains for a fun close to their day.

1:30 Closing Circle Time: We end the day with as much fun as it began, with another rendition of our favourite Kokomo songs, a review of what we did that day, and a goodbye to all of our friends!

1:45 Pickup Time: Parents and careers meet their children in the waiting room and can enjoy simultaneous pickup times with older siblings in the Chrysalis and Butterfly Programs. Children who are signed up for ASpace classes will transition to those classes rested and ready to have more KSpace fun!

Curriculum
The Caterpillar Curriculum is a compilation of curriculums and resources from around the world, but at its core is focused on your child having a positive and fun first school experience through music, movement and art. All children thrive in consistent, reliable environments where they feel secure and loved enough to explore the space around them. The Caterpillar teachers provide that security, while being sure that there is always a messy art project to create, a drum to beat or a ball pit to dive into the moment a child is ready. Some days they may need to be snuggled and read to all day, and that’s ok too.

We offer activities that encourage the development of:
• Gross Motor Coordination
• Hand-Eye Coordination
• Sensory Skills:
• Communication; Language & Early Literacy Skills
• Early Numeracy
• Emotional and Personal Development
• Social Skills

Parent Feedback
Once per term, we hold parent-teacher meetings where we formally take time to sit down and talk about all areas of your child’s development. At this time we also send home photo CDs for you to share and enjoy with your families. Teachers are available to chat about your child’s day-to-day successes and concerns daily at pick up time. Management is always available via email and our founder and director; Juliet Rogove can be contacted at juliet@kspace.to any time.

Please click on the other links to learn more about our school! We look forward to meeting you and your family soon!