Children at WonderKids Early Childcare Center will benefit from a $30,000 grant awarded by the Center for Early Learning Professionals in Warwick to enhance the program’s offerings to young children and families.

WonderKids, which has been open for 28 years, provides care for 75 children ages six weeks to five years and features five classrooms, two outdoor play areas, and a low child to teacher ratio.

“This grant will allow us to implement a comprehensive child assessment system and use that data to improve teaching and ultimately better prepare our children for kindergarten and life,” said owner and director Mary Lou Reynolds in a press release.

With the money received from the grant, Reynolds plans to purchase new materials for inside and outside and the facility. Reynolds hopes to obtain a new floor play setup, which will feature an obstacle course for infants, more hands-on materials for toddlers, and to further develop a science and math center for preschoolers.

The infant room will be the first to be updated over the next two weeks, with an addition of a four-foot divider in the middle of the room, which will allow for eight infants to comfortably stay on each side.

“We incorporate the nine domains of the Rhode Island development standards for learning in the classroom throughout the day, such as literacy, mathematics, social development and so on,” said Reynolds. “By giving students unique learning experiences we’re helping to better prepare them for the future and allow them to contribute to the community and society as young adults. This grant will really help us to do that,” said Reynolds.

Reynolds knows the names of all 75 of her students and watches them dutifully as they play hopscotch, thanking them whenever they run to offer her a flower or herb they’ve picked from the school’s tiny garden.

“The long-term goal for Wonderkids is to extend the existing program age from six weeks all the way to 12 years for an after school program,” said Reynolds.

The six-month grant is funded through Rhode Island’s Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge grant. The Center for Early Learning Professionals awards grants to licensed early childhood programs. Early Learning Professionals seeks to assist programs to increase their star rating through BrightStars, a rating system used to evaluate the quality of early learning and education programs, help staff meet Rhode Island Learning Developmental Standards (RIELDS) and Workforce Knowledge and Competencies (WKC) and advance teaching practices.

Wonderkids is located at 73 Alhambra Road in Warwick. It is currently enrolling infants, toddlers, preschoolers and pre-K students for the summer and fall of 2015. Wonderkids is also sponsoring youth soccer classes for children 2 through 5. The Minikickers program, which provides child development through fundamental soccer skills, starts in September.