How Young Children Learn

Play Is How Children Explore the World and Find Their Place in It -- And Learn in the Process!

Learning to reach for objects

 A child is primed right from the beginning to grow and to learn. Any baby developing in a healthy way will not need to be taught how to play -- it just comes naturally.

Experimenting with magnets

  But sometimes we adults think we need to rush a child along. Because we know how important education is, we want our children to learn and so we set out to teach them as much as we can. Although this impulse is good in itself, sometimes we can actually get in the way of a child's learning by trying too hard to teach them!

Manipulating objects in the context of math

We don't need to push children or cram information into their heads. We just need to ensure they have the opportunities to explore knowledge for themselves. We can expose them to a rich environment and then allow them to explore it freely.  

Let's step away and let the PLAY begin!

Norma Honeycutt, Executive Director