Children of all ages express themselves through music. Right from an early age, children sway, bounce, or move their hands in response to music they hear. Many pre–schoolers make up songs and, with no self-consciousness, sing to themselves as they play. Great importance is given to music to help children not only gain confidence but develop their minds. Listening to and making music can cause fundamentally beneficial changes in the mental development of children under 7 years of age, shaping both how the brain functions and how it is physically structured. Music is not only an auditory experience, but it is a multisensory and motor experience with a range of impacts on creativity, cognition, and learning.
Young children love playing with water and find it both relaxing and enjoyable. Splashing in the pool strengthens the child’s muscles. It improves their skill at pouring by developing their arm and hand muscles. They discover that water feels differently when squirted. They realize that objects either float or sink, and that some containers hold more and some less. They also discover that containers with holes leak water. Water play provides a wonderfully safe environment and tool to aide in learning. It provides opportunities for children to experiment and to use their creative abilities in concepts touching physics, math and science. It will also strengthen their motor skills, advance their social and emotional skills, and enhance their language development.
Sand allows children to pose questions and find solutions. It advances imagination and sensory development and creates a pathway for children to learn physical, cognitive, and social skills.
All children want to understand their world as they encounter new environments and interact with new objects. The physical world and how it works are concepts that should be introduced at a basic level initially, building in complexity as the child explores his or her environment.
Show and tell, and the manner in which it is provided for at Laurel, has wonderful benefits for little children. It is an excellent opportunity to develop their thought process and thus language and speech. It also helps them in social and emotional development. It provides a forum for self-confidence promotion and provides an opportunity to convey and share their ideas, interests, and feelings. It is also a great way to develop listening, information retention, and problem solving skills.
Supervised pretend play enhances and builds social, emotional, language and thinking skills. In pretend play, children actively experiment with the social and emotional roles of life. With other students, a child learns how to cooperate, share responsibility, and creatively solve problems. A child will also learn empathy through assuming or pretending to be different characters, which allows children to view their world through the eyes of others. Furthermore, pretend play builds self-esteem when children discover they can be and do anything just by pretending.
Pretend play also helps your child understand the benefit of language; that words provide the mechanism by which stories are told or by which play is organized and managed. It is by pretend play that children realize the connection between spoken and written language.
Pretend play also provides children with an opportunity to solve problems either individually or in cooperation with other students and it is important in developing essential cognitive thinking skills that will be of use throughout their lives.
When certain experiences and environments cannot be brought into the nursery, field trips are the answer. Field trips to a fire station, a dental clinic, a supermarket, a post office or a zoo, for example, are organized to enhance the child’s learning experiences.
Our staff and curriculum is dedicated to the proper development of our students. To that end, thematic days encourage exploration, expression, cognition, problem solving, social skills, ethics, morality and communication to name just a few. Thematic days are special days dedicated to a particular theme where emphasis is placed on such topics as art, construction, dinosaurs, Dr. Seuss, food, insects and bugs, colours, friendship and outer space. It allows for extended immersion in a particular subject.
Gardening provides opportunities for children to develop scientific knowledge and understanding. Furthermore, through gardening children are exposed to and develop skills in reading, numbers, language and communication. It also improves students’ confidence, resilience, patience and self-esteem while also promoting a sense of responsibility and empathy, which reinforces proper behavior.
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