Our approach
Play-based, in our own words
Play-based means children spend most of the day choosing what to do and doing it, with other children and with a teacher beside them.
A teacher's work is to set the room up, play alongside, name what children are doing and offer one more thing to try. We don't hand out worksheets, and nobody sits through a lesson.
Long stretches of free play
A teacher who plays alongside
The yard every day
What it looks like
Six kinds of play in a day
Free play
Children choose where to start and how long to stay. A teacher is never far.
Loose parts
Baskets of blocks, fabric, shells and cardboard tubes, with no one way to use them.
Pretend play
A wooden kitchen, a dress-up rack and a play stand turn into a shop, a home or a ship.
Building
Blocks and boxes become a city that stays up for days, and the fours keep building on it each morning.
Outdoor play
Trikes, the sandbox, the mud kitchen and the playhouse, in the yard every day the weather allows.
What a teacher does
Sets the room up, plays alongside, names what children do and asks the one question that keeps a game going.
See it in a room
Come on a tour morning and watch what the children are doing.