What does Reach for the Stars mean? It means striving to meet your highest possible potential.
Better Beginnings early childhood educators are bringing energy and enthusiasm to the classroom every day. Children in their care are encouraged to develop and learn. Children feel enabled to be their best selves and discover their own highest potential when all of us are reaching for the same goal.
You can “Reach for the Stars” at home, too! As your child’s first teacher, you can extend their learning outside the classroom. Additional at-home learning helps create a strong foundation that helps your child be successful in school and life.
Keep reading to learn what being a star-rated, high-quality provider means and discover the Family Resource Library for tips and information on child development and activities for learning at home through play. Family resources are also available in Español in our Biblioteca de Recursos.
Provider Star Information & Requirements
Family Resource Library
Children learn best through play. When you join in the fun, they learn so much more. The activities in our Family Resource Library are great for the whole family and won’t break the budget. Through these activities, learning is extended outside the classroom and a strong foundation is built for lifelong learning.
Family Buzz Newsletter
Receive resources to extend learning each month in your inbox! These resources, based on a monthly educational theme, provide age-appropriate activities to build literacy, science and math skills. You’ll also find helpful tips for dealing with difficult behaviors or find services to help you and your children.
Frenquently Asked Questions
Better Beginnings, a program of the Office of Early Childhood, connects Arkansas families with information and child care that helps their children experience a safe, happy, healthy childhood. Better Beginnings also gives Arkansas child care providers valuable tools for improving the quality of their programs at every level.
Better Beginnings is designed to improve the level of quality in child care and early childhood education programs across the state. Better Beginnings distinguishes the quality of each Arkansas child care facility by a star rating of 1 through 6.
The Better Beginnings staff works with child care and early childhood education providers to train their staff to build a better learning environment. Requirements include administrator and staff training, facility evaluation, curriculum and activities for strengthening families.
To begin the search for child care and early childhood education in a community, families can use the Find Child Care tool on ARBetterBeginnings.com. This tool shows all licensed providers in the state, but uses the star-rating system to emphasize Better Beginnings programs.
Better Beginnings is available to family child care homes, centers and school-age programs.
Better Beginnings places an emphasis on preparing children for kindergarten and the bright future ahead of them. Better Beginnings provides curriculum based on the early learning and development guidelines of math, science and literacy.
