Getting Messy

A key part of Wee Care Academy’s learning process is allowing children to get messy in their experiences here. They may get elbow or belly button deep in a painting or outdoor exploration and the teacher's role is to give the children more mess when they ask for it. As parents, you can enhance your child’s learning by making sure they are in clothes that are okay to get messy in and suitable gear for comfortable outdoor exploration. Teachers make every effort to keep children clean with smocks, but as anyone who has tried to cook, paint, or play outside with a child, dirty, wet, or stained clothes are inevitable. The benefits of messy play are many such as: providing hands-on learning experiences, giving children the freedom to be creative, enhancing children's sensory development, and supporting kinesthetic/tactile learning. See more about the advantages of messy play here: Kaplan Early Learning Company

 

https://www.nordangliaeducation.com/en/our-schools/jakarta/nis/article/2018/1/17/messyplayforchildrenlearning

 

Emergent Curriculum & Play

The educational philosophy at Wee Care Academy is based on highly respected models of early childhood education dating back to Piaget.  We believe that children learn best in a rich environment that encourages creativity, language development, and total involvement in the learning process.  This is accomplished by the use of a curriculum based on experiential learning. With a combination of play, emerging interests, imagination-driven activities, and hands-on projects, based on the developmentally appropriate stages of a child’s growth, learning occurs in a wonderful way.  The environment is structured to include a great deal of sensory stimulation – children learn about things as they see, hear, touch, smell, and sometimes, taste them. Language is developed as children learn to describe their experiences, share with others, and engage in the magical world of books and storytelling. Hands-on activities encourage social interaction, spontaneity, and discovery of joy in learning to learn!  Each child at Wee Care Academy is valued as a unique individual with an abundance of gifts and talents to be shared with us and with the world at large. At Wee Care Academy, our teachers’ role involves intentionally planning activities and supporting the children in these open-ended, healthy, environments and interacting with thoughtful questions and comments to help drive their inquiring minds and gain a deeper knowledge about themselves and the world around them.