Meet the Owner and Teacher
My name is Ashley Lopez and I am the owner and childcare provider at The Learning Studio. I have been in the field of education for the past ten years and have a passion for making everyone a lifelong learner.
Owning my own school has been a dream of mine for awhile. Starting a family childcare home is the first step in that direction. I have a masters degree in STEM leadership, a bachelors degree in elementary education and an early childhood endorsement. I absolutely love and have a passion for seeing children learn and grow.
Our Mission
Our Mission is to provide a positive, explorative and child-centered environment focused on relationships that promote creativity, inner-discipline, independence, problem-solving skills, and growth.
Our Goals
We believe that all children grow and develop at their own pace and while it is important to ensure children are ready for kindergarten and for life experiences, we also feel they should not be hurried through childhood. Our goal is to provide a safe learning environment where kids can simply be kids. We feel play is an essential aspect of young children’s lives, it is essential to their well-being and development.
We feel by arranging our childcare areas to offer challenging, interesting play and learning choices at a range of developmental levels, children will learn through their play.
We balance play with many structured activities such as table time, circle time, open ended art activities, music, meals, clean up etc. We choose curriculum activities based on the needs of the children enrolled and where we feel they need to be for kindergarten. We feel it is important to help each child succeed at his or her own level and adjust projects to meet and challenge their current level of development.
Teachable moments provide learning opportunities on any given day. Activities such as setting the table can be used as teaching opportunities. Children can learn counting, patterning, and one to one correspondence setting the table. Looking up a bug they may have seen on the playground teaches them not only the information about the bug (science), but that book, magazines, and computers are resources. We strongly feel that developing their love for learning and exploration is every bit as important as their care and safety!
We believe social skill and self-help skills are essential for each child to develop and we reinforce this through modeling responsibility, acceptance, caring, sharing and respect for all children and adults.
We believe that truly listening and engaging in conversations with children provides numerous opportunities for the development of emotional, language and social skills as well as enhancement of self-esteem. We are sensitive to each child’s social, emotional, intellectual and physical needs. We strive to meet their individual needs as well as the group’s needs as a whole. We believe given these experiences and opportunities, children will develop a positive self-esteem and love of learning that will follow them throughout their lives.
Our Philosophy
The Learning Studio is all about learning through play and having fun. We work to build a foundation for every child’s social, emotional, intellectual and physical well-being- celebrating each child’s individuality and accomplishments. Each child in our care is inspired to use creative curiosity through activities in math, science, language, literacy skills, and is led to interact with others in a respectful manner. We believe that the introduction to learning should be a joyful experience for every child. We embrace the fact that every child is unique and different. Our teachers honor these differences by providing a balance of freedom of exploration and discovery and child-initiated choices which empowers children to learn and grow at their own pace and in their own way. We promote children playing, the opportunities to be responsible, to make their own choices and to be treated with respect.