Learning Through Play…
Explore Our classroom centers
Learning happens through play here at the West End Village School. The children are their own teachers, setting their daily activities and moving throughout the classroom in constant pursuit of knowledge and understanding. Our job as educators, rather than to instruct, is to set the stage with engaging opportunities for the children to independently explore their developing interests and skills. We offer up possibilities and engage in play, documenting their work and encouraging them to think deeper and consider multiple perspectives. The materials we set out are chosen to support the individual needs and interests of each our students and so are ever changing along with the children. As a Reggio-Inspired program, our curriculum is largely understood through our classroom centers, where the emerging themes in the children’s play give way to most of our learning adventures.
MakerSpace
Our Makerspace is a multi-purpose area of the classroom where many projects and process-based activities take place. Here the children gather to make art, design patterns, engage in crafts, explore with play dough and clay, and invent creations that stretch the imagination. These tables also host puzzles, blocks, and special activities of all types in addition to the painting, beading, drawing, collage work, and other artistic play that happens here. When beginning our mornings indoors, as in the winter months, teachers set out activities or open ended projects on the tables to invite the children to dive right into play upon arrival. These activities are designed to both build on the children’s existing interests, as well as to expose them to new ideas and materials. Throughout our curriculum play time, children may swap out the teacher selected option in favor of their own pursuits. Thanks to the large work spaces these tables provide, often you will find multiple activities happening here at once, with children deep in play and conversation among their peers and teachers. This space also doubles as our lunch area where we gather daily for healthy and delicious meals.
Yoga & Movement
At the West End Village School, yoga and mindful movements are an important part of our curriculum. We understand that young bodies need to move, a lot. To preschool-aged children movement is as essential as air, and so we maintain a designated area for our young students to practice their physical skills and develop their balance, coordination, flexibility, and breath through purposeful and fun self-selected activity. Here you might find materials such as yoga mats and smaller yoga squares, a breathing ball, yoga story stones and pose cards, yoga and mindfulness books, and our Curvy Balance Board. In addition to student-led yoga practice, dance, and other movement activities, this is where we host our daily morning meetings, into which we incorporate a variety of yoga and playful movements led by one of our teachers.
The Story Corner
This is our classroom library, where we keep our diverse collection of new and classic fiction. Here our young friends gather with a teacher or parent to read a book, snuggle as they wake up or settle in for the day, and spend some time perusing our picture books in solitude and with peers. Situated between our Social Play Center, and the school’s entrance, this center doubles as a warm welcome and an extended stage for acting out scenes of all kinds. We offer an array of cozy seating, snugly stuffed animals, and an intimate and nurturing atmosphere to help soothe and inspire the mind and enjoy the many benefits of literature.
The Building Center
On the sunny stage of the Building Center, imaginations soar as children engage in a wide variety of architecture, engineering, and structural design play. Scenes are constructed and stories are played out, and inventions come to life as children manipulate, combine, and experiment with a variety of materials and tools. STEM skills are worked here in the building center as children bump up against the rules of geometry and laws of physics through self-led play both collaboratively and independently. In addition to our manipulative materials, children are inspired by our collection of non-fiction books and theme-related picture books, maps, and real life images adorning the Building Center’s walls. As in our other centers, this environemnt and the building materials and accessories offered within it reflect the developing skills and interests of our students.
Social Play
Children love to act out the roles of life they are just beginning to understand in their early education years. The Social Play Center is home to child-led games of family, restaurant and bakery, office, doctor, and so much more. Through negotiation of roles, collaboration on the design and rules of play, and invention and expansion of the story-line details children unpack and explore the many norms of home life and community life in the safe world of dramatic play here in our classroom. Friendships blossom, language and communication skills develop and creativity soars as children act out their favorite stories, invent brand new ones, and work through the many questions of social life, how it works, discovering how they want to be in the world and trying on many different parts to see what fits and who they are at their most authentic self.
The Life Lab
This classroom center is dedicated to exploring the natural sciences. Our windows and shelves are lined with plant life, much of which the children helped propagate and re-pot and care for every day. We have a bird-feeder on the window, Maine & New England field guides, and a variety of objects from nature for the children to explore with the tools to do so. We start our seeds for the garden in the springtime, collect leaves, nuts, and acorns in the fall, and have a rotating natural history exhibit from the Maine Audubon as well! We’ve had an American kestrel, a puffin, and even a red fox visit our classroom! To support and inspire interest in the earth’s wildlife and many natural elements and systems, we offer an extensive collection of children’s reference books in our Life Lab as well as a collection of animal figurines and mini-habitats for small world play.
Our Courtyard Play space
Our school courtyard, formerly a driveway, offers us the chance to bring our learning and play out in the fresh air whenever our hearts move us to do so. Because of it’s smaller and irregular shape, our outdoor space is a continual work in progress. Like our other classroom centers, this space evolves with the growing skills and interests of our young students. Outside we focus on large motor development, collaboration, creative play, gardening, and the natural world. In our summer program, we start and end our days out here, with a story corner, art activities, a water table, and a variety of materials to support authentic, play-filled learning. Our outdoor space has 4 raised beds that we fill with flowers, herbs, fruits and veggies, and the children take the lead in deciding what to plant and caring for our growing garden all throughout the year. Many plants are started indoors in winter thanks to the big, sunny windows in the Life Lab center of our classroom. Our outdoor space also offers a sandbox area and mud kitchen where the children dig, build and make lots of mud pies! Pictured left you can see our small world box, where children build fairy houses and act out all kinds of stories on a micro-scale using loose parts from nature combined with story stones and figurines from the classroom. We also have a collection of outdoor blocks and building materials that support creativity, innovation, and test the bounds of physics. Here at West End Village School, we love to get outside as much as we can in the rain, shine, and snow. Each season provides different opportunities for play and we joyfully embrace them all!