By: Lisa Murphy in favor of play based curriculum

“Child centered teachers realize that what might look like “just playing” to an observer, is usually about any or all of the following: science, observation, action, reaction, cause and effect, gravity, density, absorption, evaporation, colors, vibrations, saturation point, surface tension, spatial representation, weight, volume, distance, balance, rhythm or physics. It is our responsibility as educators to facilitate experiences that are meaningful to children; experiences that are ultimately linked to concepts they’ll be exposed to later in their education. Our job now is to connect the experiences to the concepts in a manner that allows the children to be actively involved in their explorations and discoveries about the world around them.”

Choose a pre-school that values time outdoors…

Luther Burbank (1849-1926) the world’s foremost plant breeder, friend to Helen Keller, Henry Ford, and Thomas Edison and creative inspiration to many painters, sculptors and writers said, “Every child should have mud pies, grasshoppers, tadpoles, frogs, acorns, wild strawberries, trees to climb, brooks to wade, animals to pet, pine cones, rocks to roll, sand , snakes, huckleberries and hornets; any child who has been deprived of these has been deprived of the best part of his/her education.”