About Us
Our supportive and encouraging facility provides a welcoming and safe place for your child to learn, play, and grow.
Welcome to the Carl & Norma Miller Children's Center! Our supportive and welcoming facility provides a welcoming and nurturing environment for your child to learn, play, and grow. We provide care for children ages 6 weeks to 5 years old, year-round; and provide care for children ages 5–10 during the summer months.
Curriculum
We implement the Creative Curriculum, developed by Diane Trister Dodge and approved by the Maryland State Department of Education. This philosophy supports learning by way of doing. We understand that learning is more than repeating what someone else says or does. Learning requires active thinking and experimenting to find out how things work and to learn firsthand about the world we live in.
In their early years, children explore the world around them by using all their senses (touching, tasting, listening, smelling, and looking). The Carl and Norma Miller Children’s Center uses age-appropriate materials for children to explore individual ideas. Using real materials such as blocks and trying out their ideas, children learn about sizes, shapes, and colors and they notice relationships between things.
With staff support and guidance, children observe relationships of items and then learn to use one object in place of another. This is the beginning of symbolic thinking. For example, they might pretend a stick is an airplane or a block is a hamburger. These early symbols - the stick and the block - are similar in shape to the objects they represent.
Gradually children develop abilities to use abstract symbols like words to describe their thoughts and feelings. Children learn to identify symbols through pictures of real people, places and things. This exciting development in symbolic thinking takes place during the pre-school years as children play.
Play provides the foundation for academic or "school" learning. It is the preparation children need before they learn highly abstract symbols such as letters (which are symbols for sounds) and numbers (which are symbols for number concepts). Play within the Creative Curriculum enables children to achieve the key goals for their development.
Safety, Security & Service
The safety and security of your children is paramount. The Carl & Norma Miller Children’s Center is a secure facility and only approved persons with building entry credentials can access the premises. Parents and teachers work together to sign in and sign out every child, every day. In addition to paper records, the Tadpoles Communication system is also utilized daily to manage attendance for safety purposes.
Additional reassurances of safety for your children are made possible by our facility’s unique location within the FCC Campus. FCC Safety & Security officers are always on the grounds, including trained law enforcement personnel with the highest credentials and experience in the field.
- FCC Safety & Security on campus
- Monitored closed-circuit video surveillance 24/7
Children's Center Indicators of Success
- Satisfaction Survey Results
- High demand for enrollment
- Excellent staff-to-child ratio
- High retention of enrolled families
- Outstanding quality care
- Dedicated professional teachers
- National accreditation
- MSDE accredited educational programs
- Licensed by the MSDE, Office of Child Care (MD-44818)
- Lab environment for the FCC Early Childhood Development Program
Location, Hours, and Contact Information
The Carl & Norma Miller Children’s Center
7932 Opossumtown Pike
Frederick, MD 21702
Located on the Frederick Community College campus.
View Map – Building M
Monday - Friday 7:30 am – 5:00 pm
Contact Us: [email protected]
301.846.2612
Commitments
The Carl & Norma Miller Children’s Center prides itself on delivering exceptional care and education. We do this with a focus on excellence in the following service areas:
- Provide children with a caring, safe, nurturing, relaxed, and developmentally appropriate environment.
- Accept and appreciate the differences of each child and his/her family.
- Provide an atmosphere for growth-physically, emotionally, socially, and intellectually, by encouraging children to be curious, ask questions, and discover their own ideas and responses to their world.
- Broaden the world and opportunities of the children through the introduction and manipulation of new ideas and materials.
- Serve as role models for the children through selection and continual training
- Partner with the children and their families and encourage parents to be advocates for their children by participating in the program and freely communicating with the teachers.
- Create a positive and respectful environment that enhances the individuality of each child and contributes to feelings of greater self-worth (self-esteem).
- Create many opportunities for success throughout each day.
- Develop a well-rounded schedule which includes:
- child-directed free play – indoors and outdoors;
- organized activities such as songs, stories, and games;
- many opportunities to explore, create, and be successful;
- time to practice self-help skills;
- a relaxed and respectful social atmosphere.
About Us
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