As I continue to learn from and with my early learners, I find myself increasingly curious as to why children are often innately drawn to types of learning that they would benefit from. For years now my early years team has observed children with lower language abilities drawn to language rich activities like small world… Read More Creating Meaningful Small World Play that Supports Language Development
Many children share their excitement for the holiday season with us and we are equally enthusiastic to provide them with opportunity to encounter learning through invitations to play and learn with a holiday spin. Below are some of the festive playful learning experiences that we’ve offered where children can bump into literacy and math throughout… Read More Playful Christmas and Holiday Invitations to Learn
Christmas and winter holidays awe children with their colours, lights, textures, smells, and sounds. We’ve decided to tap into this natural interest to encourage learning in math, science, engineering, fine-motor, sensory, literacy and art. Sensory Holiday Exploration We love how educators can intentionally add different materials to sensory exploration for different purposes. If we add… Read More 10 Christmas and Holiday Explorations
Since the screen-obsessed child began to dominate much of western culture many parents have been struggling with how to foster the creative play they once experienced as children in the forest playing with sticks. In Kindergarten classrooms across Ontario, Canada, educators have begun connecting children with nature by bringing natural materials into the classroom for… Read More Hey Educator, What’s This Loose Parts Play You Keep Talking About? A Parent’s Guide to the Benefits of Loose Parts Play
Our youngest learners have spent many hours playing with this woodland forest small world play sensory tray. What’s more than natural materials and loose parts for open-ended play lies an opportunity to think more deeply about literacy and numeracy. Naturally, adults would see this provocation as an invitation for children to share stories with lots of oral language… Read More Woodland Forest Small World Play (Math and Literacy embedded in Play)
It’s not just another classroom with neutral colours, stones, and baskets. We live in Muskoka and our environment as the third teacher reflects our culture of living and how we encourage children to care for our forests. We spend lots of time exploring forests using a forest-school type approach: playing with bugs, building dens, and inquiring about… Read More A Reggio-Inspired Classroom Design – Kinderland Tour Part 2
Welcome to Shapeland! Kinderland has been excited to build Shapeland using 3D shapes with blocks, tree blocks, rocks, and cut up pool noodles with long tooth pics and skewers. Our early learners began exploring shapes through play and then their own inquiries. They added materials as they wanted to use them. This constructivist approach enabled our… Read More Pool Noodle Shapeland
It has been a joy to see our early learners engaged in play with this sensory/small world. We’ve been busy documenting pirate stories as well as supporting their wonders about sea creatures. The children have come up with math games like trading money, guess my number, and more than/less than games. We love open-ended provocations and how… Read More Pirate Sensory Tray
Children love to play on surfaces and in nooks. It’s a given that children enjoying playing on the floor because there is room to spread out and take their play as far as they can dream. However, there are also times when children enjoy when the space is limited and they can create within a set… Read More Ideas to Invigorate Your Small World Shelves
Connecting early learners with nature and the environment is central to our programming. We are continually looking for new ideas to bring the outside in and vice versa. This grass box has been well-loved even in the winter months. Children are naturally drawn to plants and things that are alive. Many come to play at… Read More Grass Box, Number Mushrooms and Fairy Houses
inspired by play 