Two-year-old Levi was excited to show off his little bucket of rocks at the Inspire Early Education school in Lake St. Louis.
"I got some rocks!" he said as he showed off the collection compiled in a tiny gray bucket to School Director Addison Baker. The pebbles clacked together loudly as he and several other kids shook their buckets on the playground.
"Can I have one, Levi?" said another toddler.
Levi didn't answer and walked away as his attention was drawn elsewhere in true toddler fashion.
"They're all about sensory at this age for sure," Baker said. "We've added a lot of outdoor sensory activities to enhance their learning."
Sensory activities aren't the only new addition at the school — the Lake St. Louis South location was formerly known as the ABC Learning and Daycare Center. It was rebranded in August as an Inspire Early Education center, providing a classroom curriculum that goes beyond normal day care expectations.
After working to acquire schools in Missouri for the last 3½ years, the Inspire company, formerly known as Kids and Company, officially rebranded seven early child care schools in St. Charles County and one in Troy in August, according to Carol Ann Simms, regional west director for Inspire Schools.
Efforts to rebrand a few locations in Illinois are also underway, she said.
"We're a very new company to the U.S.," Simms said. "We were based out of Canada, and we became a U.S.-owned company under the Inspire name, which is really exciting. Our parent company is actually out of France, called Grandir — (some) Canada schools joined that umbrella, and now we're Inspire here in the United States."
The French company is over 30 years old and also has locations in Germany and England, she said.
"While we're new, we have this wonderful depth of a foundation to be able to support us," Simms added. "Coming under one name really gives us an opportunity in the St. Louis market to really lead the way in early childhood, which is our goal."
Inspire schools in Missouri:
• Inspire St. Peters/O'Fallon, formerly known as Tyke Town St. Peters
• Inspire Lake St. Louis North, formerly known as Tyke Town Lake St. Louis
• Inspire Troy, formerly known as Tyke Town Troy
• Inspire Central O'Fallon, formerly known as O'Fallon South
• Inspire Lake St. Louis South, formerly known as ABC Lake St. Louis
• Inspire O'Fallon, formerly known as ABC O'Fallon
• Inspire St. Charles, formerly known as ABC St. Charles
• Inspire St. Peter's East, formerly known as ABC St. Peters
Inspire Schools brings what's called the Creative Curriculum to the rebranded day care centers in Missouri, which focuses on intentional learning spaces for various activities like sand, water, literacy and dramatic play.
Extracurricular activities such as gymnastics, soccer and dance are also integrated into the weekly schedule.
The Creative Curriculum was first developed in 1978 by Diane Trister Dodge, the founder of Teaching Strategies Inc. Under the current version of that curriculum, Inspire schools provide classrooms where children from infants through kindergarten explore music, art, cooking, yoga and sign language — and Baker says it's never too early for kids to start learning.
"Everybody says, 'How do you do curriculum with an infant?' It's teaching them how to reach out and grasp, it's starting to help them work on rolling front to back and back to front," Baker said.
"That, in itself, is a curriculum, even though a lot of people don't see that as a curriculum. They're painting their feet. They're painting their hands. They're starting to give them that exposure of different feelings. They'll play with ice cubes in a bag so they start getting the sense of touch of cold (and) they'll do things a bit warmer. They start teaching them how to hold their own bottles."
She noted that the Creative Curriculum is age-specific, building on mastered skills in a developmentally appropriate manner. At the Lake St. Louis location, healthy eating is also promoted, and kids have a rotating menu that encourages them to try new foods. Breakfast food and snacks rotate every two weeks, she said.
"We do fresh fruit, we do frozen vegetables," Baker said. "Our menu is on a four-week rotation, so they don't eat the same thing for lunch for an entire month."
When asked what sets these learning centers apart from traditional day cares, Baker said it's simple.
"You can take your kid anywhere and you can just have them play, and yes, you do learn through play," Baker said. "But if you take it that little step further and you teach them while they're playing, they don't necessarily realize they're learning.
"But then when they head into kindergarten, they're almost a leg up — the kids can count 1 to 50, they know how to write their name already because we've been working with them on those … fine motor skills. You don't realize that those are all things they need by the time they enter kindergarten."
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