As powerful, growth-promoting, and essential experiences in the world of young children, meaningful play and small group explorations constitute the basis of our curriculum.
This curriculum model directly influences all areas of development by offering children opportunities for building relationships and gives children the freedom to imagine, to explore, and to create.
We support the development of dispositions of mind from the first days of preschool to the transition to Kindergarten that lead to life-long learning: wondering and questioning; thinking and predicting; investigating and experiencing; applying and reflecting; focus and self-control; communicating; making connections; critical thinking; taking on challenges; self-directed, engaged learning, and more.
Children learn about "academic" subjects daily. Experiences that build the foundation for literacy, mathematical thinking, problem solving, and for peaceful conflict resolution are offered via children's hundred languages.
For example, art materials such as paint, clay, wire, music and dance, sand and water exploration, dramatic play, storytelling, block play, wood-working, and outdoor physical activity are vital parts of leaming.
The curriculum planning process at Palisades Preschool is inspired by the Reggio Approach, and includes long-term, integrated, project work often stimulated by intentions—big ideas that arise from previous experiences, teacher and child interest, and the continual search for complex and novel research. Project work in this process is based in exploration and playful experiences, co-constructed by teachers and children.
Learning takes place within individual, small, and large group experiences and discussions in which children’s interests are energized by teachers and by the environment. The role of the teacher is often to enliven. In our Reggio-inspired work we observe that children respond with effort when their interests are provoked and engaged.
“Children want to play but they also want to step outside play….and aspire to effort, which they also desire.”
— Loris Malaguzzi
Thus, the play that occurs within our small groups in classrooms and ateliers can also be considered “small group work.”
