About the Program

Pegasus Studios,  Childhood Expressions ™ Fine Arts Program was developed by our Founding Directors, Jane Davis-Munro and Lynda Johnson (OCAD) and has been a trusted neighbourhood program for the past 33 years. The program is rooted in their joint expertise on the teaching of dance and art to children. Jane Davis-Munro also contributes her work as a Certified Early Childhood Educator to ensure that this program works in conjunction with healthy practices of childhood development and strong principles on working with children to encourage their growth as individuals and bringing their unique spirit to each class. This program has been carefully crafted and continues to be developed and updated since its inception in 1986.

Pegasus Studios,  Childhood Expressions ™ Fine Arts Curriculum provides a positive learning environment for young children to explore, create, express and develop their inborn creative spirit, physically, visually and musically.
Research has proven that by introducing dance, music, visual arts, drama/storytelling and literature in the early years exercises both hemispheres of the brain and opens the doors for successful future learning.

​Childhood Expressions ™ fine arts based program will lay down the stepping stones for your child to transition into Kindergarten. As registered dance educators,  artists and early childhood educators our program follows principles from the Royal Academy of Dance Preschool syllabus, research based child development practices and takes into consideration guidelines from the Ontario Ministry of Education Kindergarten Program in preparing your child for future learning.

 

Details

Age
​This program is for children 2.5-4 years olds. Children need to be 30 months by September 1st, 2021 to be successful in this program. 
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Days & Times
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:00-11:30 am.
The length of each class and the rhythm of the morning will be determined on the theme of the day and the needs of the children.
​Specific classes in Music & Movement, Exploring Art, and Dramatic Play classes are taught each morning.

Music & Movement
The theme of the class will be explored using percussion instruments, varieties of sounds, music and dance.  The children will be encouraged to explore their own spontaneous movements, improvisations, and imagination to help them find the joy and magic of movement.  This will allow for communication through expression, controlled motion, movement and stillness while focusing on patterning and perceptual awareness. Development of basic locomotors skills, body awareness and control increases awareness of time, energy, spatial concepts, shape and form. 
The children continue to explore related themes in the Exploring Art portion of the program.

Exploring Art
This class allows the young child to ‘do art’ to discover, explore and experiment.  In this process they will discover many things including colour, shape, form and texture while experiencing joy, patience, creativity and the mystery of manipulating various materials while engaging their eye and inner vision.  For this reason the ‘process’ is more valuable to them then the ‘product’ and is most beneficial at this stage of development. This Visual Art class will allow them to explore and discover their world and through our program will also offer preliminary concepts introducing science, nature and math skills through counting, shapes, measurement and patterning.

Dramatic Play
The theme of the day’s classes will be explored through role playing, social interactions and cooperation as we integrate books, felt board stories, puppets, fingerplays, rhymes and dramatic play into each lesson, building language, vocabulary and sequencing.
The children are encouraged to stimulate ideas, reasoning, recall and social cognition. Pre-literacy writing and drawing occurs through the stories the children connect to their work and through the conversations and idea sharing that helps to boost the children’s confidence in expressing themselves through language. This allows us to explore and empathize with various emotions as we listen, interpret and formulate our ideas and conclusions.  ​

... as a parent and a speech-language pathologist I truly believe the mix of movement and songs promotes language development, especially in toddlers who are struggling a little. And the focus on that is not something you get with all preschools. - Jennifer, parent

​What sets us apart

• High adult to child ratio (1:5)
• Curriculum based on theories of child development & learning through the arts
• Program is focused on increasing each child's cognitive, physical and emotional development
• Our curriculum has been developed over the past 33 years and continues to be enhanced based on new research into the development of the young child
• Fully equipped dance studios, with proper sprung floors to prevent injuries, with non-slip dance flooring.
• Dedicated Art studio with every supply a child needs to create and explore a variety of fine art mediums
• Creative Drama Studio provides a space for role playing through dress up, creating stories with puppets and felt boards.
• Lesson plans that integrate all the Fine Arts for a complete sensory learning experience.​

 

Register

• Registration for Fall 2021 will open on March 1st, 2021.
• Our Creative Arts and Fairytale Dance summer sessions are a great introduction to the Childhood Expressions Program. ​Learn more about our summer programs. 

Childhood Expressions is not a Day Care but a Specialty Creative Arts Program
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The School Season is from September 14, 2021 through June 23, 2022 when we will  celebrate the children’s accomplishments with a Parent Open House, Art Show of the children’s work and show some of our favourite dances.  We hope to encourage the whole family to dance with us and continue dancing and doing art together!
We will follow all other TDSB school holidays.

Have questions? We'd be happy to talk to you and book an in person studio tour.
​ Please call us at 416-469-2799 or email us at [email protected].