Early Childhood Programs

The first five years of life are a critical time of development—especially social/emotional development which is a key foundation block for early learning. Through its partnerships with 30 early childhood centers, Alternatives supports the social/emotion development of young children by providing visual art instruction, teacher training, and curriculum resources to center staff.

Al's Pals

Kids Making Heathy Choices

Al's Pals is a nationally recognized curriculum that includes easy-to-implement lesson plans, puppets, music, role play, brainstorming, storytelling, and other interactive approaches. Children who participate in Al’s Pals are 2-5 times more likely to demonstrate pro-social skills than children who do not participate in Al’s Pals. This project is also coordinated with early childhood nonprofit First Spark and the state's VQB5 quality rating and improvement initiative for early childhood programs.

Children in a crowd listening to a speaker through Alternatives Inc in Hampton, VA

HCAT

Alternatives, Inc,. will provide training and technical assistance to community, faith, and military based centers to assess organizational practices and improve nutrition and physical activity of children. HCAT aims to formalize the structure of the early childhood network to improve opportunities for healthy foods and physical activity for children 2-8 and institutionalize changes in policy and practice.

Examples will include training in best practices of nutrition and physical activity, creating center policy to promote healthy snacks and celebrations, examining current menus to support better nutrition, role modeling, and how to increase physical activity in the classroom.