University Children's Learning Center
The University Children's Learning Center (UCLC) provides quality care and early education for children of UND students, faculty, staff and families of the Greater Grand Forks Community.
The UCLC is dual licensed by the North Dakota Department of Health and Human Services as both a child care center and a preschool. The Learning Center is open year-round and offers three full-day options for children's enrollment. The UCLC serves children aged 18 months to 5 years.
Child Care in Grand Forks
UCLC provides quality care and early education for children of UND students, faculty, and staff as well as families from the Greater Grand Forks Community. The Learning Center welcomes children from a variety of ethnic, cultural, socioeconomic, and educational backgrounds, and is committed to integrating children with special needs.
Learn Through Play
UCLC isn't your typical child care program. The Learning Center's teachers (most with a minimum of a Bachelor's degree) take pride in providing a progressive learning environment for all enrolled children, regardless of their abilities.
Quality care and early education are achieved by:
- Enrolling children into a "family", which provides a sense of familiarity, safety and security, and a sense of belonging to a community.
- Having classrooms staffed by a minimum of one teacher with an early childhood education background, as well as student caregivers who have received training in the practices of developmentally appropriate early childhood education.
- Encouraging children to learn through active exploration of their environment.
- Encouraging children to build social skills through group activities that encourage cooperation and collaboration.
- Providing high-quality, USDA-approved breakfast, lunch, and snack menus developed by a registered dietitian and prepared using safe and healthy practices, which are served family-style.
- Purposefully planning learning experiences based on the teacher's observations of the children as they play.