The Marigold School of Early Learning
Preschool designed specifically for children 3-5 years of age!
A small in-home preschool with a Play based philosophy for children ages 3-5.
Dear Marigold Families,
This is a wonderful article and for those of your concerned about your preschool-aged child reading and writing before entering kindergarten, I think this is good information for you to have. The article is from the Washington Post.
Heidi
Well after months of seeing a ton of wonderful postings on Mud Kitchens I decided to try making my own! :)
First came purchasing all the supplies I thought I’d need. This required two trips because I needed more screws than I originally thought. Then I moved everything outdoors and applied two coats of waterproof stain. I let that cure for 24 hours in between coats. One thing I learned is next time to make sure I purchase some boards to place all the pieces on as I coat them, so the grass does not adhere to the sticky surface and create a hairy mud kitchen like it did this time! :) Oh, well, a little texture never hurt. :)
I assembled the mud kitchen in different ways until I found a good height combination.
For each step, I used my electric hand-held drill and some Ikea tools. It took about three days in total to put together, stain, cure, stain, cure and assemble. After placing a backboard and an extra shelf for stability and storage I was ready to load it up and see how it would handle some tubs with dishes and some flower pots for loose parts. All put together I thought it turned out pretty functional. I then placed the unit onto a blanket and slid it along the floor till my sister could help me carry it outside. I’m sorry, but for now, I don’t have any pics with my students interacting with it so I will post what it looks like outside later on.
If any of you have made your own without the help of your husbands, boyfriends or handymen, please let me know. And if you care to share a photo or two that would be great too! :)
Walk, Ride a bike or drive to The Marigold School of Early Learning! :)
Heidi Scott has over twenty years teaching experience in grades preschool through third and holds a Bachelor’s in Human Development with a Focus on Early Childhood Education and a Master’s In Teaching grades preschool – eighth grades.
Playing with cars is more than just the act of pretending to drive and sound effects. Cars can take on the role of multiple characters to inspire imaginary play. Cars can be used to experiment driving on different types of constructed roads, they can be measured against different length strings and they can be used to paint with. The list really can go on and on, but the one thing to remember is how cars are not just toys to add sounds and drive.
When a child’s mind opens to imaginative stories cars become characters in those stories. They can play supporting roles or be the main cast. For a child having that imaginary character around will help them be inspired to explore textures, measure, count, pattern, and paint.
Dolls are also a traditional aspect of childhood play, but these little wooden dolls have abilities that the bigger baby dolls aren’t quite as handy at. And that is their small size allows them to travel to many different stories. They fit into baskets, buckets, bowls and are easier to incorporate wherever a child goes. We call these wooden dolls fairies and sometimes they are supporting characters in the stories the children create, but they have yet to be main characters. Some children will automatically incorporate dolls as their playmates or main characters of their stories and will often include them in family role play. However, there are also children who have other interests and dolls come in second. Children really do have diverse and similar interests, but often they do not follow stereotypes unless the adults around them are encouraging them to follow the stereotypes put out by multiple toy media companies and TV shows. Listen, observe and converse with children to know what toys/ tools they prefer instead of just assuming girls like dolls and boys like cars. Often both girls and boys like both. And since both materials are used as characters in stories they are an important part of a child’s process of learning about the world they live in.
Toys are tools to gain knowledge with, they are materials that are more inviting and successfully used when they have multiple purposes so the child can continue to learn and grow with every use. Open-ended materials are wonderful for children to have and to use in ways they can understand. Yet, open-ended materials are also wonderful ways to bridge the gap between understanding concepts and not understanding. And open-ended materials provide just the right disequilibrium or challenge for every age!
Let children enjoy learning! And the best way is through play!
Heidi Scott, BA & MIT
Fine motor development in preschoolers cannot be rushed, yet like disequilibrium when being challenged at the right level children can interact with their learning environment in several different ways that support a kind of challenge that is just right to help move along their fine motor skill development. You may think I mean worksheets or having the teacher sit the child down and trace either letters or numbers, but that is not what I am referring to.
By using my school classroom as a “third teacher”, I am able to incorporate many different sized materials that are appropriate for young children’s growth and development of their fine motor muscles. Setting up provocations to see if they have an interest in drawing is one example. A common provocation, activity, lesson, whichever you prefer to call it when paper and crayons are present children will usually gravitate to that table because of all the joy they find while exploring colors and expressing themselves artistically. However, they do not always want to draw a picture. Sometimes they are writing as they explore colors. Scribble form is the beginning of writing and is a developmental process all children go through and every child experiences this step. Children will go back and forth between scribble and symbolic as they gain new information and interests while their skills become more advanced.
Revisiting the word “provocation”. When I set up crayons and paper it is not an activity or lesson, it is an invitation to create. The provocation is open-ended meaning the child can do whatever they want and while they are exploring, experimenting and creating I am observing the entire process and admiring the process. This child loves to arrange the colors in rows, counts them, sorts them by color and on occasion experiments with patterning. When other objects are included by the child, such as cars, a narrative emerges and soon the scribble form is accompanied by the child verbalizing a story while “writing”. As I scribe the words the child is saying aloud, I also inquire as to whether I am writing the words they want me to. This is a great way to support a child’s writing development and keep the child engaged in the learning process by tapping into their internal interest they are showing at that moment.
By providing young children with choices for drawing/art tools they are able to challenge their fine muscles to move along those skills of development, just as when disequilibrium occurs to challenge children at their level cognitively. A continued example is of oil pastels and how they are a bit thicker than regular crayons and pencils, so more of a whole hand grip is needed for drawing, while the other tools I mention can be held differently to adjust to the size, shape, and weight of the writing tool.
In addition to writing/drawing tools, there are of course real tools! Above is an example of both plastic tools, and real tools such as screws and nuts of three different sizes. The real tools are part of the “Loose Parts and Intelligent Play Things” theory that I’ve incorporated in different parts of the classroom and am still collecting. We see that once again fine motor skills are in use in different ways and each challenges the child. Holding onto a screwdriver with a thicker handle and figuring out which way to turn it and how tight or loose of grip to have can cause some children disequilibrium until they have mastered the tool and move on to something more challenging. Trying out real tool parts such as screws and nuts is also a chance for children to be in disequilibrium because they are getting the hang of aligning the screw and nut so twisting will cause the nut to move up or down the screw. Getting things aligned can be a challenge and just the right kind because with a little persistence and a little support the child will have this skill down pat in no time. All while continuing to develop their fine motor muscles.
The Marigold School of Early Learning is a Reggio Emilia Inspired Preschool for children ages 3-5. :) Support your child’s natural curiosities and development by encouraging your child to play and observe closely to see what your child is really interested in. You may be very surprised with the process your child demonstrates. Children are intelligent people and all they need is us adults to support them on their journey of natural curiosity which leads to an ability of unlimited learning.
Heidi Scott, BA & MIT :) 
In the early years of child development gathering, collecting, sorting and counting can become a great passion for many young and eager learners. You may notice young children will count a wide variety of objects. As a child constructs knowledge/ understanding the information they are exploring, questioning and manipulating will transfer to many other areas. Children aged three often are gatherers and carriers, meaning they enjoy finding every small to medium sized toy, object, tool and collecting them all together, then traveling with them. These items are then incorporated into the child’s imaginative play.
I’ve witnessed many early learning teachers trying to stop this behavior in their classrooms for one reason and it has nothing to do with learning; the children are making a mess and mixing the materials. Now if the items were being destroyed, ruined so other children could not use them, then, of course, we must put a stop to destructive actions, yet when a child is simply following natural development of the brain, there is no valid reason to stop this behavior. Gathering, sorting, transferring and using items for different purposes is natural and engages a child’s mind in a more meaningful way than being told how to play with those items.
An educational viewpoint embraces this stage of child development and encourages the child to continue with their explorations, questions, ideas, and plans. Using the classroom toys, tools and materials for different purposes show the child is constructing knowledge. The vehicle on which new understanding is being formed comes from the child’s ability to dramatize with the items, role play. Those mixed up and jumbled materials take on a role in the child’s ever-changing stories and make-believe adventures. When items like buttons or magnet numbers are collected and treated as frosted cookies, the child is displaying their understanding so far as to how life works. Too general of a term? The child is communicating through this process that there is an understanding of family roles, friendship roles, professional roles, and many more life roles that we all play a part in for our entire lives. And yes, the child is using objects, not for the purposes they were designed for, but rather as a way to formulate concrete understandings of an abstract world.
Counting is a regular part of academics in any household and early learning environment with young children. Learning number symbols is a part of the continued construction of knowledge. A knowledge that will be built upon with every small advancement made. Again we see that any object can be counted. Any object can take on the role of a number. When young minds count a variety of materials that action is displaying a mathematical understanding. If the child only counts one specific type of object, understanding is then still in its infancy, so to speak. However, when a young child can count anything and not be inhibited by what that object is, counting has meaning understanding is further along. Strength in mathematics can be in every child/ boy, girl or otherwise. We as early learning professionals should always put learning/education first with our young students. Human beings never stop learning, so let’s not get in the way of our youngest minds! Be sensitive to what the child is telling us.
Children want to understand so the best way to formulate knowledge is for them to physically manipulate any object they can get their hands on. Counting items over and over again and incorporating a wide selection of materials to be counted allows for the brain to build several pathways all with the goal of complete understanding ahead of them. Magnetic numbers do not have to be in numerical order for the child to formulate numerical sense. Each number symbol is just that an abstract symbol in the form of a concrete object that can be counted and lined up to organize and keep track of. A strong pathway has formed through many tiny pathways leading to this moment. The foundation is set for all future learning. As a three-year-old grows to four and five those abstract number symbols will be better understood, their value and meaning made clearer. Entering K-3rd grade the mathematical concepts explored so vigorously in preschool will ensure a deep understanding when they are needed for more complex theories and strategies. However, the most successful are not just those inclined with one of Howard Gardner’s intelligence categories, but those children allowed to fully explore the environments they inhabit.
We can see that while counting a child is also formulating an understanding of left to right progression. (My camera makes it look the opposite) In our culture, we write from left to right, so children see this modeled countless times. Writing is not the first time children show this concept and display understanding, yet all too often this skill is overlooked. Let’s stop rushing and pay attention to the little details children communicate to us. After all, children communicate in 100 different languages, children’s language, which is universal. Early writing is the scribble stage of development and a left to right progression is being practiced, yet in counting this is also happening. A transferring of information equals understanding. At the same time pathways for writing left to right are being constructed not only during the times a child picks up a writing tool but whenever a child finds objects to count and sort. All these pathways form while children are exploring, questioning, planning and discovering. And each is enabled to learn more and be successful as the elementary years emerge.
Paints and teacups with buttons follow the progression of direction. Mixing red and white to make pink is not the only skill being learned at this moment. As this child paints the progression of left to right is being followed, practiced all on her own and not with any influence from me directly. Forming a line with teacups filled with buttons has many skills involved. First sorting and filling each cup with the buttons, then carrying them to a specific location, which requires balance and motion, then lining them up.
I value early learning and respect every child’s capacity and ability to learn! Preschool is the place to start when you want your child to be as prepared as possible for all future educational endeavors. Learning is fun and us adults should embrace that joy!
The Marigold School of Early Learning is a Reggio Emilia Inspired Preschool Specifically Designed for Children Ages 3-5.
Heidi Scott, BA & MIT is an experienced Teacher
The seeds I’ve planted are growing nicely and soon will need to be planted. :)
Onse seed from last years marigolds is growing strong from this planting. :)
New sprouts have taken off from the new batch of marigold seeds. These will be dark orange-red rather than golden yellow.
The Forget-Me-Nots are doing really well. I thought for a time they would not survive, but they did! These cups are used coffee pods placed in egg cartons.
This year I planted more than one runner bean and they grew immediately. I will need to get the strings ready very soon or else they will be flopping over the windowsill.
Red sunflowers are also quickly growing! I will need to get all of these sprouted seeds out to the yard this week. :)
Walk, ride a bike or drive to The Marigold School of Early Learning! :)
Heidi Scott is a Master level Teacher
Spring is finally here!! Red tulips are in full bloom. I love watching tulips small buds slowly open.
Grape hyacinth is also in full bloom and very vibrant.
Each year the tulips multiply and form such a lovely outdoor bouquet.
The inside of a tulip is similar to the sunshine bursting!
Healthy food is not only important for the three main meals a day for growing bodies and minds. Often times preschool aged children will attend programs that provide snacks, yet these snacks are usually high carb, simple sugar, low fiber and sometimes contain food coloring. These types of snacks usually rate about a 5 on a scale of 1-10 because they do offer water, milk, fruit, veggies and nuts. However, children feel the effects of these simple carbs too quickly and end up with a huge burst of energy and then they start to crash and become grumpy, tired, irritable etc. you get the picture. Is this the child’s fault for eating the snack? No! We adults should be keeping up with what nutrition young bodies and minds need not just at home, but in every environment, children engage in. When children are in preschool they are using a lot of cognitive and physical energy to get through their day. They are learning and gaining new knowledge and let’s face it, that is not always easy work, it is demanding and challenging and requires the right kinds of fuel for children to keep the energy they need at a level appropriate for their growing minds and bodies.
I like to provide organic, gluten free and dairy free snacks that consist of fruits, vegetables, gluten-free whole grain crackers, nuts, seeds and nut butter along with water. The snacks I have planned are like mini meals because I want children to consume healthy foods for longer attention, steady and consistent energy and I want to expose them to foods they may not have tried at home before. I have had students who enjoy eating carrots at school and not at home just because it was served differently, but sometimes I have introduced a fruit or vegetable that a child has not tried yet and sure enough they realize it tastes great and want more!
When we simply don’t have the sugary, food colored simple carb options available children don’t think about them or want them. When children can be a part of making their snacks and serving themselves they learn how to eat healthily, how not to waste food and, how to read their body’s signals when they are full and satisfied. The energy output is much more even-paced and moods improve and stay uplifted throughout their time at school. This doesn’t mean that if children are exposed to all those sugary goodies once in a while that they will not want them, but not having them around can really curtail the desire for them. And don’t we all want children to grow up healthy, strong and capable? Let’s feed them organic healthy snacks without the sugar and food coloring.
Heidi Scott is an experienced Teacher with a Master’s in Teaching. Please walk, ride a bike or drive to The Marigold School of Early Learning! :)
From infancy to age five there are countless developmental factors occurring daily and yearly in a young life. Why is early learning so important? And what ways do children ages three to five really learn?
First, early education is important because the window for assimilating and accommodating new information is only fully open when you are a young developing life. That window of learning goes through various stages of development itself before it shuts just enough to make learning a bit more challenging for adults. That certainly doesn’t mean that adults can’t learn new information, but it does mean that we adults have to navigate through our immense forests, mountains, and trails of previously learned knowledge to make room for new concepts, ideas, and information. This is a process considered easy for some and more difficult for others based on their previous level of education, the amount of diversity in their lives and an internal willingness to open their minds to new information. And one thing to remember is life itself is an ongoing process of learning.
If we peer into a window looking directly into a young child’s developing mind we will see many things changing, spaces filling up, pathways being created and a complicated network in construction. There are stages every child goes through during this intricate journey of learning. (I am only covering three stages in this posting).
When focusing on children ages three to five the social/emotional aspect comes into play. Young children at first can emotionally only handle one other friend to engage with. Notice how I did not say “play with”. When a young child first begins the process of interacting with other children either their age, younger or older, there is an observational period in which the child will watch and listen while closing the proximity between them and the child they are focused on. If the child they are observing appears to not be a threat, the child will then start to play next to this child. Parallel play in one sense is a simple way for children to occupy the same space as another child in a non-confrontational manner while learning about that child’s personality, abilities, and similarities. At this point, the child is looking for similarities each have in common. “Does she like purple cars like me?” “Does he build houses like me?” “Are we wearing the same shirt?” “What is he/ she doing?” “Can I play with him/ her?” These are questions that may run through a child’s mind, however in a young child’s mind these questions are not articulated, but rather feelings, emotions running through their minds, waiting for the impulse to act on one or more of those feelings. 
The child’s journey of learning does not end there. The child will now move to associative play and start to play around and near other children including the first child they observed. An important fact to note for this stage of development is the child will be around and near other children and be engaged in play, however, there will be no common goal for the type of play this child is engaged in and for those in the area. This is the stage of development and the area of play where young children will converse, interact with the same materials, but not in an effort to form rules and common goals. This is a period of growth for a child to in a sense manipulate every engagement with both fellow children and the environment in a way to assimilate new knowledge and acquire skills to mature to the next level of development. Associative play paves the way for young minds to start the process of negotiation, compromise, common goals and the experience of delight when engaging with others which form an outcome of positive benefits. Now some sources may say this happens at ages four and five, yet it really does depend on the child. Many three-year-old children already are at this stage. And it is not a reflection of their intelligence, but rather a personality attribute and the type of family life the child is a part of. Remember a child’s experiences first emerge in the home with their families and whatever dynamics make up the family structure will affect each child in a vastly different way.
The last stage I will cover in this posting is cooperative play. This is an equally important stage in child development as all the other stages. However, cooperative play is a bit more advanced and usually will occur with children in the range of 4-5 years. Again there is a case by case aspect that really cannot be ignored. Children as young as three can and do often fit into this stage of play sooner if they come from a family with siblings and if they have been exposed to many more social engagements than a peer who has less social experiences. Personality also plays a role in whether a three-year-old child will reach this stage of play sooner. It is not an aspect of development which can or should be rushed, though. When a child reaches this stage assessing any given situation is a quicker process and the child has some definite goals, plans, and ideas. Working with more than one other child begins to be common and taking turns, sharing, negotiating, compromising and forming a plan to carry out together will happen regularly. Some children still have a difficult time if, in groups of three, four people in a group tend to be more acceptable with their framework of understanding, so it is okay to model how to play in a group of three or to encourage dialogue when children start to get frustrated with their ideas not being heard. In a Reggio Emilia inspired environment, it really is important to listen carefully to the dialogue before intervening because you really don’t want to undermine the complex socialization taking place with each child. Learning how to work together cooperatively is the basis of this form of play and this stage of development and without the opportunities to practice these evolving skills consistently those vital skills, we all need as adults will not fully develop. 
All too often young children are rushed to grow up and skip the vital developmental stages and processes they must go through naturally in order to be successful and capable as they grow older. Pushing traditional academics onto young children is not developmentally appropriate in any way. Remember that the early learning years are based on concrete minds, minds in which abstract thought has not physically developed yet. Children in the preschool years will naturally be exposed to letters, numbers, rhyming words, chants, stories of all sorts, expansions of their own imaginative stories and along with other important information all educational experts and families want their child to know. Just remember that before some of these more traditional skills are learned, practiced and mastered, the essential building blocks of cognitive development must be given a wide space to develop naturally. Early learning schools following educational philosophies based on Play are the absolute best learning environments for young minds to grow, learn and become competent and confident people as they enter their next educational experiences.
Take the time to research some educational theories focused on the early years of child development and also research the types of early learning schools there are in your area. Make sure you choose a school that truly will support your child’s natural abilities to learn. Schools for children should feel warm, safe, happy and they should follow real educational theories. If they are just advertising “play-based”, that does not address what type of program they really follow or if they follow one at all. And remember that the teachers who interact with your child should be kind, sensitive and supportive of your child at all stages of his/ her development. This goes for childcare facilities and in-home daycare businesses as well. The adult you leave your child with should be kind, respectful and sensitive to your child at all times because as we all know, as adults we don’t forget the pain adults caused us as young children.
Early childhood is an immensely important time in a human beings life. So support their needs by enrolling your child in a preschool that cares about their educational futures and respects their rights as intelligent sensitive people.
The Marigold School of Early Learning!
Heidi Scott is an experienced Teacher with both a Bachelor’s in Human Development with a Focus on Early Childhood Education and a Master’s In Teaching grades preschool – eighth grades.
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Provocations have multiple meanings. Provocations are open-ended in the sense that a child is not limited as to what they can do with the material. The picture above has inch worms, a doll, a wooden bowl and a glass jar. With these items, children are inspired, but what exactly that inspiration is, depends on each child’s interpretation of the scene before them. At first glance, a child could count the worms and dismiss the other items. They could pattern the colors or group by size the worms. They could use the doll and form a story with the worms being worms. Taking out and putting in again from each the bowl and jar can also be a choice each child has to make when seeing a scene such as this one.
The picture to your right is a standing area and some items on the shelves set out for use. For the standing area again there are multiple choices within this provocation. Some children will push aside the numbers and start stacking the blocks. Or they could start counting the blocks. Some children will count and associate the counting with the numbers. Another child may choose the book and ignore the other items. Another child may see the doll and use the blocks to form a home for the doll. How a child interprets the provocation depends not only on interest, but the child’s age and developmental level, and their personality. Some children may ask a friend to join in their play and together make meaning from this provocation. A child may decide to move the small blocks to a larger area to expand upon an idea they want to try out. Provocations to us adults may seem so simple, yet when we dissect what is really there for children to explore, we see how complex they can be.
The shelves contain many items for the children to explore and again those items communicate multiple meanings as well. Things may look at first simplistic, yet when given further attention and from a child’s perspective, there is so much more to gain from items like these. A learning environment is chalked full of educational opportunities even if we adults miss that fact.
With cloth to designate the area, recyclable items, dolls, blocks, wood rounds, and cars there are many different choices set up into one provocation. Too much? Not really. Every child that comes upon a scene like this one will either push items away they are not interested in, or they will narrow down the items they choose to interact with. The older and more sophisticated the play becomes is when all the items will be used and make sense. For a younger three-year-old child choosing one direction of play for this provocation will be enough. For another child choosing two directions of play will be appropriate for their growing mind, and for another child using all the items will be just right and will cause some disequilibrium. Provocations can be multilayered and provoke deeper thoughts and cause the mind to stretch in an attempt to understand the new information put before them. My job is to support and expand upon the learning that takes place at all levels of development. And that is one very special aspect of early learning and teaching! :)
The Marigold School of Early Learning! A Reggio Emilia Inspired school for young children ages three to five!
Heidi Scott, BA & MIT
The Marigold School of Early Learning 