Category: Preschools in Vancouver, WA
Be inspired to join a preschool specifically designed for your child!
Pretend Play with Blocks
Blocks, cars and fairies!
Using geo-boards as movie screens!
Fairies like to eat too!
You know, blocks have a home too.
Even three year old friends know where the blocks live. 🙂
Making houses for fairies is important not just so they have a home just their size, but in case it rains and they want to stay dry. 🙂
Play is a form of work packed with deep meaning when applied to young children. There is so much value in the many forms of play that exists for children. The imagination is such a powerful thing, yet combined with materials essential to constructing the foundation for future learning, it becomes that much more meaningful.
Come play with us! Learn with us! Grow with us! Help build a strong community of intelligent young people! 🙂
Open House!
Saturday, July 2nd will be an Open House! If you are interested in seeing what The Marigold School of Early Learning looks like in person, please come visit! 🙂 You are welcome to drop by between the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. 🙂
Green Apple Cinnamon Play dough
Apple cinnamon play dough not only smells good, but this batch turned out super smooth and very malleable! Notice the above picture is of a young child starting with a medium sized flat circle of dough and then following it are three small ones with the last being super large. This child started each piece by rolling each into a ball and then using both elbows, flat hands and her stomach to smash the dough flat. Comparing the size difference between circles was not a Teacher directed provocation. This child chose on her own to compare the sizes of the five circles she made herself. Each time a child creates or constructs he/ she is cognitively and physically forming knowledge about that object and shape. The young mind takes into account the smell, color, texture and how this medium changes and in what ways. What better way to really understand shapes than to actually create them from a material designed just for young hands and minds.
The next day apple cinnamon play dough was of great interest again, but more use was made with the adjoining craft sticks. This time following a similar theme as above, this child chose to line up the sticks side by side. Comparing the same size and shape of each stick was the purpose. And it was entirely the child’s idea. Compare and contrast is also a concept that neatly fits into shape building. Children explore the world around them by using tactile senses, eyesight, hearing, and movement as well as oral and sign language. The whole child is engaged and the whole mind constructs the building blocks necessary for further academic learning.
Small hands formed the letter “O”. This “O” is for now a representation of my name. Yes, it is not a letter in my name, but it is a start! Emergent curriculum happens when young minds show internal interest and motivation to understand. My job is to make sure to support and draw out the knowledge from within and add to it as we go through our preschool journey.
Heidi Scott, The Marigold School of Early Learning
Come to the Preschool Fair!
We are off to a great start for 2016!
If you are a family with young children ready for preschool please check out the link below. Preschools from all over the Clark County area will be at the 2016 Preschool Fair! So check out their information and come join us! 🙂
https://www.facebook.com/events/1636476286606893/
Heidi Scott, BA & MIT The Marigold School of Early Learning 
Dress for the Weather
Just a reminder for all of the families out there with young children. You probably already know this information, but I always like reminders.
*Remember that small, young children warm up quickly indoors and cool off even quicker outdoors. Keep your child bundled from head to toe literally.
- Have your young child wear a warm hat to prevent heat loss from the top of their heads
- ear muffs to protect their little ears from the cold
- mittens to keep their tiny hands and fingers warm
- a child size scarf around their necks to prevent the cool air from getting inside their shirts
- a warm coat to keep their body heat in
- and thick warm socks for their feet.
- rain-boots or other boots that are well insulated and have good traction will also prevent heat loss from their feet.
- Also make sure their shirts and pants are thicker for these colder months. The outerwear is great, but regular clothes should not be the same as what they wear during the summer months.
- When your young child comes back indoors make sure all of the outdoor warm clothes come off so the indoor heat can reach their bodies and they can acclimate to the warmer indoor environment.
*Also make sure to hydrate your young child. We often forget to drink as much water as we do in the warmer months. Children need to keep hydrated year round, so make sure you encourage them to drink water, juice, milk and yes, hot cocoa! 🙂
Heidi Scott, BA & MIT The Marigold School of Early Learning 
Play Based Learning
Cars and Blocks! 🙂 A three year old child decided that cars and blocks go nicely together and so began construction of a large one story building and some nice parking spots for cars. And some cars park upside down.
I absolutely love how this child decided the parking spots should be on tall polls! What do you think, is this the future of parking? Maybe when cars fly like on the “Jetsons”? 🙂 Again mathematics and yes, physics are happening here. This child put those cars on the pulls many times because gravity and balance claimed them. Finally with much persistence they stayed put.
Moving along from cars and blocks, we find that using scissors to cut play dough is a great way to practice proper form and to strengthen our fine motor skills. This child follows a normal developmental pattern of going back and forth between using two hands to open and close the scissors and using one hand to cut and one to hold the object needing cutting. As a mentor and guide in this situation, I modeled it once and let her try. I encouraged her to keep trying when she felt it was too hard. And she did wonderfully on her own! 🙂 The next time we used scissors for paper and for play dough she allowed me to model it once and she tried it until she felt satisfied.
Heidi Scott, BA & MIT The Marigold School of Early Learning 🙂
Come join us at The Marigold School of Early Learning! We would love to play with new friends and together plan many exciting and new projects!
Following the Interest of a Child
Before we went on winter break I captured these pictures from the morning preschool sessions. 🙂
Using puzzle pieces and a small wooden bowl I set up a provocation for the morning. 🙂
Here is a small example of emergent curriculum. I based this provocation off of what I saw happening in class. The week before a three year old child used dominoes and cars to create pictures, so I thought why not try the same idea using puzzle pieces. Again, I do not expect and am not crushed if a child does not take interest in a provocation, it is a learning process for both myself and the students.
What ended up happening is the puzzle pieces were moved to a piece of fabric in the Reading Corner and buttons were added to the bowl. And that is when a child’s imagination took over! 🙂 The puzzle pieces and buttons became cat food! And as I was documenting this emergent process I also observed a strong interest in cats. This particular child has a pet cat, so no surprise with the interest. This is leading me to adding a few more cat books to our Reading Corner and non-fiction ones as well.
Here is an example of little bear and a cat book. Since interest in cat behavior is showing up in play so strongly, I am going to incorporate facts about cats and see what types of provocations I can set up to entice young children’s interests in cats or other animals. The content areas that will be covered will include literacy, art, and science. How interested the children are in the topic will determine how deep we go into the content areas, but I can tell you from years of experience that when young children are interested in a topic, deep and meaningful learning experiences are the result. And the wonderful thing about it is that is all stems from the children and is not topics forced onto them by the Teacher. 🙂
Heidi Scott, BA & MIT
The Marigold School of Early Learning
Provocation and a Child’s Interest
I’ve talked before about how young children sometimes will be curious about a provocation or not. I’ve also talked about how using the materials you have is a great way to incorporate recycling into your curriculum. Above I had set up a small provocation using boxes, blocks and wooden dolls, our fairies. And I used a piece of fabric to place them all onto. I had no idea if this would be an interest or not, but I tried anyway.
It turned out that one of my students chose to remove the blocks from the table and take them to the construction/ block interest area to build with. The boxes, dolls and fabric were all left behind. So I decided to follow this child and put the boxes and dolls in the construction/ block area too. At first block building dominated and no interaction with the dolls took place. However, just as I was about to give up on my provocation entirely, this student decided the dolls needed furniture. 🙂
It turns out that the provocation wasn’t a fail as I thought it was. This child made it her own and took it in the direction she wanted. She moved the blocks to an area she could build, then she used the blocks to make furniture for the dolls. She explored, constructed and planned using her own timing and ideas. I mentioned the word “planned” second because often times young minds construct first and formulate ideas and plans as they go. Constructing knowledge as they engage in hands-on projects enables their young minds to experiment with the many ideas running through their heads.
Sometimes it can be very difficult as a Teacher to sit back and wait. Sometimes it is important to follow the child’s lead and then step back again. Waiting, watching and listening are all part of the documentation process and of being a Teacher, Mentor and Facilitator.
As this child started to story tell about the dolls/ fairies she used our wooden tool bench, tools, and alphabet puzzle pieces and incorporated them into her story. This child was also integrating the content areas such as mathematics when building, for example, measuring, comparing sizes, shapes and balancing each block. She also entered into literacy development when she started story telling. Allowing young children to express their individual ideas and creative thoughts is all a part of a strong learning foundation. This simple example is what enables children to take risks with their learning as they grow older. We want children to have confidence and the ability to make difficult decisions as they grow into adulthood and become responsible citizens. It all starts in the early years of development.
Heidi Scott, BA & MIT 🙂
The Marigold School of Early Learning
Fabic Pieces and Interest Areas
The Marigold School of Early Learning is a morning preschool for young minds aged three to five years. School resumes the week of January 4th through 8th, 2016. We are ready to jump into learning fun at 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., so come join us so you can enjoy learning too! 🙂
Using fabric pieces, interest areas can move about the school or be more visible to young children’s eyes. When I first bought the fabric scraps I knew I would use them for something, I just didn’t know exactly what. And then it hit me! Portable interest areas or provocations with a similar concept to movable centers.
In the Construction/ Block Interest area there is a rather busy carpet. Some children actually do use the roads on the carpet while most do not. So since it was such a busy background I put down one piece of fabric and moved the lacing cards to the Construction/Block Interest area. The lacing cards were more visible and it freed up our table for play dough fun! 🙂
We also found that the same piece of fabric could be used as a table cloth on our kitchen table. So it turned out I had plenty of uses for my pile of fabric scraps. 🙂 Not only did using the fabric for multiple things work, we discovered how easy it can be to gather materials and put them in their proper place when they are on fabric that can be easily and quickly turned into a makeshift bag. Of course we made sure all four corners were up and tied together before moving the materials.
Setting up a provocation using fabric and other materials sparks a young child’s mind into thinking along creative pathways. Using the materials in endless ways keep the children expanding their thoughts and understandings too. Fabric is large, small, soft, smooth, rough or bumpy. Fabric is portable not static and can be used in many different ways to enhance quality learning for young minds. Children experience color, texture, patterns, size differences and the many uses that come from having fabric as an educational tool. 🙂
This child used puzzle pieces and buttons as cat food. We put down a piece of fabric in the reading corner.
Back to the Construction/ Block area we used another piece of fabric to use blocks and mini checkers for sandwiches. And yes, this was a three year old child’s idea.
Another day we used blocks, wooden bowls, geo shape blocks and other fun items to make a picnic! The imagination of a child never stops and the wonderful part of all of this is the endless learning that is unfolding!
Come join The Marigold School of Early Learning if you want your 3-5 year old child to experience the joy of learning through inquiry, exploration, discoveries and many more developmentally appropriate learning opportunities! 🙂
An unopened canned soup made it’s way onto our picnic area! This is all the creative work of a three year old child! 🙂