My Baby
The My Baby nursery school was founded in 2012 as a bilingual nursery linked to the company Medacta International SA and welcomes children from 3 months to 3 years.
It is open from Monday to Friday from 7.30 a.m. to 6.30 p.m., with the possibility of choosing the most functional type of attendance for different family needs. All the staff work daily to ensure the well-being and involvement of the children and their families.
The My Baby nursery school is one of the facilities that can benefit from cantonal subsidies and responds to cantonal directives through the FOAG (Office for the support of institutions and activities for families and young people), which supervises and verifies compliance with the law; it is also a member of ATAN (Association of early childhood care facilities).
The nursery is authorised and supervised by the DSS (Department of Health and Society) for hygiene issues; Fourchette Verte regulates and periodically checks that the food parameters shared in Ticino are respected.
The My Baby Nursery can accommodate a maximum of 50 children from age 0-3 years.
The environment in which the building is located is a quiet area of Castel San Pietro, close to a wood, amidst vineyards and small craft businesses. It has an outdoor garden (My Town) and a fenced part of the wood, equipped with balance paths, slopes for climbing and a connection with the nearby stream. The garden is cared for by children of all ages who live in the campus every day.
The educational proposal is based on some pedagogical pillars that influence the daily activities offered to children, according to what is called pedagogical activism. The main references are Maria Montessori, Loris Malaguzzi, Emmi Pikler, John Dewey, Baden Powell, Thomas Gordon. The Montessori method, the creative approach of Reggio Children, the importance of the outdoors are experienced in a full time bilingual environment and through structured activities, that aim to develop the language through the principle “one person one language (OPOL)“.
Quality Bites
At My Baby the expression Quality Bites refers to those practices that make the nursery experience valuable not only for the welcomed children, but also for their families, who are invited to participate in various important moments of their children’s lives. This happens both in the facility and through other ways of sharing:
Rites of passage
Celebrations are moments of joy, occasions for sharing, to celebrate an anniversary. At the My Baby Nursery, parents, teachers and children gather together to celebrate some significant steps reached by children:
- Celebration of the First Steps: in the pre-toddlers section, to celebrate the achievement of an important motor autonomy as being able to walk
- Celebration of the potty: in the toddlers section, to celebrate the achievement of an important autonomy such as sphincter control
- Celebration of Thank you: in the toddlers section, for children who have completed the nursery cycle and are preparing to move on to kindergarten
Personal notebooks
For each child, the teachers prepare a personal notebook, periodically updated with meaningful pictures to remember many experiences lived at the nursery such as discoveries, achievements, tears, stages of development. The notebook is read at home with mum and dad, giving the child the opportunity to express the narration of the images in his or her own way, recalling the emotions they arouse. Documentation is a daily commitment on the part of the teachers, aimed at telling the story of the children at the My Baby Nursery.
Possibility of breastfeeding at the Nursery
Mothers, who wish to do so, can breastfeed their baby while at the nursery, using a dedicated breastfeeding area. This possibility is particularly easy for mothers employed by Medacta International SA, given the proximity of the company to the school facility.
Individual meetings with parents
During the year, parents and teachers meet to discuss the pedagogical path the child is taking, based on careful observations by the professionals working at the nursery. In the pedagogical dialogue, we speak of mobile dissymmetry, considering the actors in the dialogue to be equal on the basis of human value, providing an exchange of up-down positions that ensure dynamism in co-planning.
Starting from the daily observation of each individual child, it is possible to identify which points of interest are the subject of the documentation work. The teacher is able to grasp the nuances that emerge from the child’s communication: in the 0/3 age group, non-verbal messages are often more significant than verbal ones, so it is necessary to observe them carefully in order to be able to document them.
Therefore the meeting becomes an opportunity to define development goals together and redefine the expectations. Teachers and parents team up for the well-being of the child.
A special day at the Nursery
With the arrival of spring, parents of the older children are given the opportunity to spend a morning at the nursery, if they wish.
In turn, the parent of a child is present in the class and is asked to prepare a simple activity to carry out together with their child’s classmates. The activity is agreed in advance with the teachers, who take care to prepare the group of children for a special occasion, an experience to be lived together.
On that special day, parent and child arrive at the nursery after the morning snack, around 9.45/10.00 a.m., and leave after lunch, around 12.30 a.m.
Discover our team
Highly qualified educational staff in regular training, with native Italian and English speakers full time!
