Educational Foundations
Step into a Bright Beginnings classroom and you will see brightly colored children’s artwork covering the walls, children reading with their teachers, and using up-to-date classroom technology. You will find teachers who understand the special needs of children living in homeless environments and observe the staff actively supporting their positive development.

Bright Beginnings realizes the importance of a fun and creative learning environment, providing unique learning opportunities to support children’s growth. Bright Beginnings incorporates the award winning High/Scope method into its curriculum to ensure that children are well prepared to meet important childhood milestones and enter kindergarten ready to learn. Bright Beginnings selected High/Scope for its documented track record in helping young children from low-income environments develop early self-reliance and learning techniques.

Bright Beginnings offers homeless children a consistent group of caring adults, friends to play with, and a chance to explore the world- in the classroom and outside. The Children's Garden, built in 2005, introduces homeless children to the natural world by offering them a clean and safe place to run, ride bikes, and grow vegetables.

Classroom activities are supplemented by hands-on experiences with fields trips to the library, circus, zoo, arboretum and the airport. Taking the learning experience outside of the classroom and going on field trips provides the children with experiences connecting words with actual objects, expanding their vocabulary.

Music and dance are an important part of childhood fun. Twice a month Mr. Derby's Nursery Jam and Show jumpstarts the children's day by coming in and singing and playing favorite childhood songs with a twist. Bright Beginnings also has a partnership with the Wolf Trap Residency providing 17 weeks with the children learning through movement. These partnerships are an exciting way for children to demonstrate proficiency in the motor and cognitive skills that come from feeling and expressing a beat, moving with music, singing, and playing an instrument.