We Believe Every Child...
…is a Gift from God
…needs intentional direction from people who care.
…has a unique life plan designed by our Creator.
…is precious.
…needs structure and guidance.
…deserves a childhood filled with love.
…needs instruction to become accountable adults.
…learns from play.
…needs confident adults who can lead, guide, and direct.
INFANTS
Babies need warmth, love, attention, and care – and that’s why parents choose our academy. Our Infant rooms are designed with safety, comfort in quiet peaceful loving surroundings. Our rooms are comfortable and safe where your baby can explore their little world in a stimulating environment. We offer more than other centers, after one visit you will feel our difference. Our LifeShapers care about your babies growth and development spending their day focused on your baby’s needs. Grace-A-Child Academy’s commitment is to ensure your baby receives personalized care, stimulating age-appropriate activities, and lots of love.
TODDLER
Toddlers need lots of room to explore as they are discovering the world around them. Toddlers learn best in safe, loving places where they can explore, in their own way. The activities for this age group are built around toddlers’ limitless curiosity and their natural desire to push boundaries. During their time with us your child will learn to count, explore colors, and music. With lots of time building friendships, following simple instructions, learning how to potty, and enjoying purposeful play.
EARLY PRESCHOOL
Our early preschool program is designed to help your child be prepared to learn basics such as letters, numbers, colors, shapes, and vocabulary words. Our time with your child will include learning and social opportunities like simple addition and subtraction and science, movement and imaginative play with props. Much of this will include group play where your child will make friends and learn cooperation and taking turns.
PRESCHOOL
With improved coordination and thinking the world begins to open up for preschoolers. Our program introduces language, math, science, Spanish, and social skills in a natural sequence to nourish learning one step and a time, with individual attention suited to your child’s unique needs. Each day at our centers preschoolers explore science experiments, create artwork, play characters and movement games. In this way they learn following directions and other key skills for learning success.
PRE-K
Your child will gain independence while getting ready for the transition to kindergarten with a more organized environment. Our passionate teachers will partner with you during this special time making their “senior year” of preschool the best it can be. Each day your child will explore a variety of cultures, doing simple addition and subtraction, creating simple patterns, singing songs, doing art, and making music.
BEFORE & AFTER SCHOOL
When you’re a working family with school-age children, finding reliable before- and after-school care can be hard to come by. Grace-A-Child’s got you covered.
Our before- and after-care programs go well beyond homework help. We support children in becoming the kindest, most capable, and most resilient version of themselves. That means giving each child the space, encouragement, and materials they need to follow their passion.
Curriculum
Academic Departments
At Grace-A-Child USA Academy, we’re more than educators. We help families build confidence for life. Our programs give children a foundation they can build on. Wherever they go after they leave our academy, they’ll be ready to think bigger, feel stronger, and aim higher.
A child’s world gets a little bigger every time they step—or crawl, or roll, or hop!—into a Grace-A-Child classroom. Here they can build a skyscraper, cook an imaginary feast, or heal a teddy bear’s runny nose. Everything in our classrooms is designed around their unique needs.
Reading & Writing
Children at Greace-A-Child are read to everyday because it promotes social skills, academic skills, and it is fun! We start reading in the infant room and do more advanced books as the children get older. Grace-A-Child also participates with Scholastic to provide new books to our families and our classrooms every month. We introduce sight words starting in our Preschool 1 classroom and we incorporate them more in the Preschool 2 and Pre-K classroom. In our Pre-K we sound out syllables and start reading beginner books.
Our babies get face to face interactions, story time, nursery rhymes sang to them, & play who’s that in the mirror! Handwriting without tears is what we use to guide our reading & writing curriculum. With this curriculum we do not teach in alphabetical order, but easiest to write order. We also teach uppercase letters before lowercase. We have seen the benefits of this method, at the end of the Fall semester when children are writing their names and sight words. A new letter is intrduced every week, and practice with name writing throughout the year.
Mathematics
Horizon’s Math is our source for our mathmatics curriculum. Among the manipulatives used are dominoes, counters, play money, place value materials, a flannel board with numbers, abacus, beads, and flashcards. Lessons are taught with visual aids and manipulatives to better help young children grasp concepts.
Our curriculum guides children through learning how to count from 1 all they way to 100. From there your child will learn to count by 5 and 10, practice addition and subtraction, and be introduced to telling time. Our younger groups explore size differences, shapes, and patterns.
Discovery & Science
Our science curriculum is built on hands-on and child-centered activities. For our babies we use blocks, cups, visual tracking with rattles, and cause & effect with toys.
Depending on our theme of the week, we are exploring a new topic. We plant flowers, crave pumpkins, experiment with food, and learn about the world around us. We encourage learning through experience and interaction. Our younger children explore their senses by interacting with colors, textures, and sensory bottles, tables, and mats.
Dramatic Play
Our children have big imaginations and we want to encourage that through play and learning. Dramatic Play encourages self-regulation and social skills. By interacting with their peers and pretending to be certain roles, they learn how to work as a team or be a leader/team-player. Each classroom is equip with a Dramatic Play area filled with toys that encourage imaginative play. We have stuffed animals, dress-up, kitchen sets, play food, dolls, phones, and more. We change-up our dramatic play center often to better learn about our weekly themes. We want all children to be confident in themselves and their ideas. With imagination comes big ideas and Dramatic Play provides a space that allows each child to explore and express those ideas in other areas as well.
Art
Our art curriculum is based on our weekly theme and we love exploring different ways to create art. We use paint, crayons, markers, chalk, paper, recyclable materials, stamps, stickers, nature and more. With our infants and waddler’s we love use hand prints and footprints to create all sorts of pictures. The children love to create their own artwork. We also introduce a new artist every month and try to create similar art pieces to display around the academy.
Music
Our babies listen to nursery rhymes, soothing rainy day songs, and musical toys with interative features. Our toddlers and preschoolers play games using musical chairs, learn letters and words using the sons like ABC’s, and interact with musical instruments.
Fine & Gross Motor
Fine & Gross Motor skills are introduced beginning in our infant room. Each Academy is equipped with all sorts of toys that help with their grasp. As well as learning to hold their own spoon, bottle, and cup. Babies learn gross motor skills by learning to sit up with support and pulling up to stand. Our little ones especially enjoy finger painting with pudding!
Our older groups practice using buttons, zippers, and stringing beads. Fine motor skills are the building blocks needed to begin holding a pencil and writing. We also use Cheerios, picking them up, grasping them and moving them to a tray. All classes practice using turning the pages of a book, and finger paint. Outdoors we work on the gross motor skills with skipping, crawling, running, jumping, throwing, and climbing. Grace-A-Child Academies are equipped with outdoor playground equipment for this purpose.
Outdoor Play
Our babies are stimulated each day by practicing sitting up & rolling over, exercising their arms and legs, and rolling balls. Our toddlers and preschoolers play on our outdoor playground equipment, blow bubbles, dance, play with balls and frog hop!
Extracurricular Opportunities
Extracurricular Programs
Extracurricular activies are important for the overall deveopment of children. At Grace-A-Child USA Academy, our extra-curricular activities build social skills, help with culture shock, and create new and exciting experiences that can be shared with the whole family. These activities do not interfere with our regularly scheduled curriculum.
Sign Language, Spanish, Yoga, and Bible Lessons are taught each week and are a part of our core curriculum. We are very excited to offer these programs at no additional charge.
All other extra-curricular options are available by choice and require an additional fee. These include Little Leapers dance, and Soccer Shots. Payments are made directly to each individual organization — speak to our reception about ways to register!
This is an amazing opportunity and we feel truly blessed to be able to partner with some of the NRV’s best programs.
Please read more about each of these incredible programs below.
Sign Language
Sign Language is a part of our core curriculum at no additional charge.
Yoga
Yoga is taught throughout the week and it is led by a video. Various videos are used each day to give a variety. We incorporate yoga and use it as a signal for time to slow down, which helps self-regulation and gets the children in a restful state of mind while still moving around. The children love this peaceful time and enjoy stretching and learning new poses. Yoga is a part of our core curriculum at no additional charge.
Soccer Shots
Soccer Shots is a character education & introduction to soccer program perfect for children looking to learn a sport in a non-competitive way. Each week, we play fun games and learn skills based around our character word of the week, including such words as respect, enthusiasm and confidence.
CLICK HERE FOR Christiansbubrg GAC REGISTRATION!
CLICK HERE FOR Radford GAC REGISTRATION!
Website Address: www.soccershots.org
Little Leapers
The Little Leapers’ Daycare Dance Program is a great way to introduce your child to the art of dance and tumbling while at their regular daycare center. Our instructors go to the daycare center and teach a weekly class in ballet & tumbling. No registration fees, no costume fees, no running to the dance studio. JUST FUN! Students will also be invited to participate in the annual Spring show with the rest of the classes that regularly meet at the Little Leapers studio.
If you have any problems registering please email us at
Spanish
Spiritual Development
Grace-A-Child USA Academy incorporates children’s spiritual development simultaneously through play. The singular purpose of the academy is for each child to experience the love of God through everyday interaction with adults. Each of our academies has Chapel weekly with all of our Preschool classes that incorporates praise and worship, as well as a short Bible lesson. We have a memory verse and prayer that correlates with each week’s Bible lesson. We also play Christian music throughout the Academy to provide a peaceful and encouraging environment.
Child development
Developmental Skills
At Grace-A-Child USA Academy, we encourage parents and teachers to work together as partners to help children grow up to reach the full potential for his or her health development.
See the list below to learn about the five main areas of child development and what skills children develop at different ages.
If you would like to learn more about this please check out this amazing resource:
Cognitive Development
This is the child’s ability to learn and solve problems. For example, this includes a two-month-old baby learning to explore the environment with hands or eyes or a five-year-old learning how to do simple math problems.
Social and Emotional Development
This is the child’s ability to interact with others, including helping themselves and self-control. Examples of this type of development would include: a six-week-old baby smiling, a ten-month-old baby waving bye-bye, or a five-year-old boy knowing how to take turns in games at school.
Speech and Language Development
This is the child’s ability to both understand and use language. For example, this includes a 12-month-old baby saying his first words, a two-year-old naming parts of her body, or a five-year-old learning to say “feet” instead of “foots”.
Fine & Gross Motor Skill Development
Fine Motor Skills: This is the child’s ability to use small muscles, specifically their hands and fingers, to pick up small objects, hold a spoon, turn pages in a book, or use a crayon to draw.
Gross Motor Skills: This is the child’s ability to use large muscles. For example, a six-month-old baby learns how to sit up with some support, a 12-month-old baby learns to pull up to a stand holding onto furniture, and a five-year-old learns to skip.
NUTRITION
Food and Nutrition
At Grace-A-Child USA Academy we are proud to have a wonderful chef that prepares fresh meals for your child everyday.
Each Academy has:
- Different home cooked meals everyday
- Fresh food cooked daily
- Commercial Kitchen on site
- We are a peanut free facility
- All Meals included in your tuition (Breakfast, snacks and lunch)
SECURITY
Live Web Cam's and CODED Entry
At Grace-A-Child USA Academy security is one of our top priorities.
Christiansburg Academy is equipped with:
- Effortless communication
- Every classroom has a LIVE camera that records everyday! We have incorporated AVIGILON Software, you can login in any time of day and check in on your laptop, and tablet.
- Real-Time updates
- Secured by CODED ENTRY so that only authorized staff and families may enter. Visitors are buzzed in by reception. (This has been temporarily changed due to a rise in COVID-19 cases — Parent clock-in & out has been disabled. All children are clocked in by on-site staff)
- Safe, secure perimeters to ensure that children can enjoy outdoor play safely.
- We use safety gates and door guards (except fire escapes) and cap electrical outlets.
- Our centers include smoke detectors and fire extinguishers.
Radford Academy is equipped with:
- Effortless communication
- Every classroom has a LIVE camera that records everyday! We have incorporated AVIGILON Software, you can login in any time of day and check in on your laptop, and tablet.
- Real-Time updates
- Secured by CODED ENTRY so that only authorized staff and families may enter. Entry door remains locked. Reception is staffed to greet all visitors. (This has been temporarily changed due to a rise in COVID-19 cases — Parent clock-in & out has been disabled. All children are clocked in by on-site staff)
- Safe, secure perimeters to ensure that children can enjoy outdoor play safely.
- We use safety gates and cap electrical outlets.
- Our centers include smoke detectors and fire extinguishers.