The curriculum at FACE Children's Center is child driven. To decide on a theme to use in a classroom, the teachers do a variety of things. They observe the children at play to see where their interests lie. They interact with the children to prolong and extend the play and gain the interest level. And they listen to the children to learn of knowledge gained through the activity.

After a child driven theme is chosen, the children are directly involved in the planning. The teacher will ask two very important questions:

1. What do you know?


2. What do you want to know?

The answers given decide which direction the theme will take. As the theme develops, the teachers are constantly observing and listening to the children to see what interests them. Many times a theme will start out in one direction and change course due to the children's participation and attention level. A theme always has teacher-oriented goals that must be accomplished, but the way to do this can vary immensely.

Themes are intense, with lots of learning and fun happening. When a theme is finished, there is usually a period of a week or two for the process to begin again. During this time, the teachers will put out materials and read books to spark new interests. There is a great deal of learning going on during both of these periods and most importantly, the children are happy and having fun as eager participants.