Quality time at home, combined with quality ECE…
…finding the perfect balance.
A morning spent with loving caregivers and whanau at home, and then an afternoon spent with others your age can strike a balance that creates confident, well-rounded tamariki.
Here at Discovery Junction we value play as a vital part of children’s learning and development. They are creating skills for life that are bound by the lifeblood of early learning. It is “not just play’, as children develop their cognitive, socio-emotional and social skills that they will take into their adult lives.
From the age of two years onward, we are continually honing our emotional intelligence. It is in these next 18 months that much of our cognitive framework forms. It’s one thing to practice these new skills with adults, and another thing entirely to socialise with a cohort of our peers - who are using similar motor skills and vocabulary to learn confidence, cooperation, and most importantly empathy.
Learning through play helps promote four core competencies: 1
1. Thinking skills
Play-based activities enable learners to engage in flexible thinking processes such as problem-solving, analysing, evaluating, applying knowledge, innovation, and creativity.
2. Interpersonal skills
Play-based learning allows learners to practice language development, cooperation, negotiation, leadership, empathy, active listening, and compromise.
3. Socio-emotional skills
Play contributes to a child’s sense of well-being and can support the development of intrapersonal skills such as self-esteem, motivation, resilience, concentration, persistence, and time management.
4. Agency and engagement
Play-based learning can encourage a sense of agency and often results in more profound levels of participation in education.
How do you find the right balance? We believe the best place to begin is by talking with one of our teachers. Every child is unique, and their home learning environment subtly different. By engaging with us, having a look around our purpose-built early learning facility in Opawa, and telling us about your work/life/learning situation, you’ll be able to find the balance between home and ECE learning that fits your needs.
Source: https://www.legofoundation.com/media/1063/learning-through-play_web.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3-8HshTiwmdE87S8xLhnCLKyqc4xDz9GLsWLTFRcPDIoMStmBM1U5KcY8
