Services

Our Philosophy & Education

As research has proven, children do their most important learning from birth to the age of five. Just Like Home Childcare, Inc. believes that as Early Childhood Educators, it is our job to provide children with an age appropriate environment that encourages them to learn, play and explore.

We believe in learning through play and focus on the child's natural curiosity of wonder and discovery.

We believe that every child needs hands-on experiences, warmth, attention, enthusiasm, and

encouragement. Most of all, they need the joy and challenge of doing things for themselves.

We believe that parents are the most important significant adults in a child's life. We strive to create mutual respect between parents and teachers. We encourage daily communication and have an open door policy.

We’ve created a positive, clean, and child like atmosphere with plenty of fun and educational toys, books, games, arts, crafts, sensory tables, imaginative play, sand and water play, and much more.

Children enjoy dancing, music, storytelling, games, arts, crafts, etc. They love to help and even though it does take a little more time, we allow them to do the things they enjoy – helping to prepare and serve meals, older children putting bibs on younger children, sweeping the floor, picking up their bedding after naptime, etc.

Children are treated with kindness and respect and are spoken to at their eye level. We provide activities that are engaging and age-appropriate, and offer a clean and inviting environment. We also offer assistance in potty training. The children have their own bathroom that is clean and easy to access.

Parents find it comforting that their children are very excited to come in the morning and are happy and playful when they pick them up at the end of the day.

We are blessed to have a gigantic outdoor play area and have begun to focus on a more natural playscape outside. Just Like Home, Inc is proud to have an outdoor playscape that is also a "Certified Wildlife Habitat" through the National Wildlife Federation. We also have a pond that is completely fenced all the way around so it is inaccessible to the children but; they can still hear it and see it. It has been approved by The Department of Early Learning.

Preschool program

We provide a preschool program where each child learns at his or her own pace. We understand each child is unique and to encourage that, we’ve tailored our program to meet their individual needs. We carry out preschool activities throughout our day and all ages are included in those daily living activities. We also have a more structured preschool time on Mon, Wed & Fri from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. where we use the Mother Goose Time curriculum.

We are fortunate to have taken what we believe to be the three best preschool philosophies and have incorporated them into something that we feel works excellent:

“Learning Through Play” – “Montessori” – “Reggio Emilia”

We believe that each of these programs offer wonderful learning experiences for young children, including infants, toddlers, and preschoolers.

“Learning through play” provides a very fun and active way for children to learn by doing what they do best – playing. We strongly support children participating in storytelling to allow them to use their own imaginations. We change our environment at Just Like Home very often, providing the children with a great variety of social, play, and educational experiences. We also work on plenty of social skills and work daily on manners, feelings, and how to treat those that we care about.

“Montessori” is more structured to provide individual learning and a variety of daily living and work activities. Montessori incorporates the whole child in their social, emotional, and cognitive development – it’s a hands-on learning environment. Children use their senses to learn. They learn at their own level and at their own pace as opposed to being teacher-directed.

“Reggio Emilia” is more of a project-based, student-directed, group learning environment that is less structured than the Montessori program. Students work with teachers to plan long-term projects. We do most of this during the spring and summer months when the children grow their own vegetables, flowers and plants in our garden, feed and tend to our chickens in the play yard and watch the life cycles of frogs, ladybugs, and butterflies, among other things.

About Kathy

Kathy Miller has been the owner of Just Like Home Childcare & Preschool, Inc. since 1999. She is the mom of four children; Matthew (27), Cody (23), Kady (20), and Riley (13).

Kathy obtained her Child Development Associate Certificate from Green River Community College n 2007. Kathy and her staff are current on CPR, First Aid, TB Testing, HIV Certifications, Background Checks, and Blood Borne Pathogen Information.

Kathy is the President of Columbia River Family Child Care Association and takes hundreds of hours of training's each year on a variety of Early Childhood Education subjects. You are welcome to view my trainings taken by year.

Kathy is also a certified American Red Cross CPR and First Aid Instructor. She is a member of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), Oregon Eco-Healthy Childcare, Washington State Family Child Care Association (WSFCCA), and is a participant in the USDA Food Program.