" Every week Sam learns something new at Playgroup and tries it at home."
For young children learning is a creative process. It is also organic. They grow their knowledge informally through imitation and trial by error. In their early years learning is a great source of joy. They are eager to practice new knowledge and understandings; they work to apply these in new ways and  in new situations.  

One example of building on experiences is the ongoing exploration we are doing of a tree limb. The first week the children painted the branch and all its limbs. While painting they needed to look over, under and around the branches to spy areas that needed more paint. The second week we supplied tubes which the children enjoyed slipping over the branches. It was as though they were "dressing" the tree. Last week, we removed the tubes from the limb and placed the limb upright in a jar with sand. The children  painted the tubes and could then climb a stepladder and reach out and place their tubes on a branch. The children were careful climbing the step ladder. They liked the challenge. How capable they felt!

This session's theme, "Color and Texture," guides how we choose materials and design experiences for your children. In any given activity we like to offer contracting materials. Children will be painting and drawing on a variety of surfaces, making prints in clay with various objects, and constructing  with metal objects to make designs and express the idea of "face."

This session the children are exploring the idea of weaving by making things stay on/in a weaving structure made of chicken wire. In order to introduce the idea of weaving we play a  game of "passing" a strip of ribbon like material back and forth through holes in the chicken wire (there is a child on one side and an adult on the other). For younger children, there are materials like feathers, plastic leaves or fabric flowers which can be "poked" or tucked in a hole of the wire.