Early Childhood Learning Center
A cornerstone of the Cultivate Chicago will be its Early Childhood Learning Center (ECLC), which will deliver the highest quality pre-school learning to 120 three and four-year-old Head Start students. By introducing its whole-child approach to students two years before they reach kindergarten, AGC expects to see even stronger academic, health and well-being outcomes by the end of eighth grade and beyond.
Joining The Program
As we prepare for our launch, we ask that all interested in enrolling children within our Early Childhood Program please fill out this form.
We will be in touch with updates related to enrollment and recruitment events in the coming months.
Space to Learn & Grow
The AGC Early Childhood Learning Center would encompass more than 4650 square feet of dedicated space in the main building of the new AGC Learning Hub. With three acres dedicated to urban agriculture and farming studies, the 120 three- and four-year old pre-school students would also have daily exposure to the greenhouses, learning barn, orchard and hoop houses set aside for organic food production on campus.
Skills to Thrive
By growing their own vegetables and helping to prepare delicious, healthy dishes in their own Learning Kitchen, the students will learn to love nutritious food and advocate for it at home. Fully immersed in pre-school International Baccalaureate and dual language programming, the students will develop inquiring, confident minds, preparing them to transition right into the AGC Learning Village for kindergarten and first graders right in the same facility.
Whole-Child Approach
To address trauma-induced stress, the ECLC teachers will provide Social and Emotional Learning, including daily yoga, meditation and exercise, and AGC will strengthen its out-of-school programming, expanding its mandatory Parent University program and healthy cooking classes.
To track the impact of this whole-child approach, AGC has engaged the Harvard School of Public Health and other partners to design studies aimed at validating and replicating the AGC methodology, including the impact of Early Childhood Learning in the AGC whole-child context.
