Curriculum at The Tinker Yard is built upon principles of the Reggio Emilia approach. We trust children and hold a strong view of children being competent, curious, full of knowledge, potential, and interested in connecting to the world around them.
The Tinker Yard is where children feel safe, cultivate strong, secure and trusting relationships, develop life skills and know that their thoughts & ideas are important and valuable.
"The goal of education is not to increase the amount of knowledge
but to create the possibilities for a child to invent and discover,
to create men who are capable of doing new things."
Jean Piaget
Children are respected as capable and competent learners. They are empowered to take ownership of their learning while getting adequate support by our teachers. In planning the curriculum, we draw inspiration from observations made of children. Curriculum is framed by big ideas that children have and aligned with early childhood frameworks.
Children learn to work together to achieve common goals as a team. They become self-motivated to seek solutions and collaborate with others.
Parents are valued partners in the children's education. The Tinker Yard keeps an open door policy and communication with parents. Children's learning stories are regularly shared with parents through an online platform.
Children are given
opportunity to make decisions, try things out, test their hypothesis and more
importantly feel secure to take risks. We learn by doing and mistakes are
inevitable. At The Tinker Yard, mistakes are accepted. We believe that children
learn from failures as much as from successes.
We believe that children learn when they are having fun. Visitors to The Tinker Yard will find children engaging in different activities. At times, play might get messy which is perfectly fine with us as that is the exact reflection of real play!
“Children
learn as they play. Most
importantly, in play children
learn how to learn.”
O. Fred Donaldson
WHAT WE ARE NOT
- We do not make children sit for long periods of time against their will.
- We do not compel children to work on tasks that they have lost interest in.
- We do not use a top-down approach in our interactions with children.
- We do not do time-outs or punishments.
- We do not use the thematic approach that is overly structured and teacher-directed and allows little or no room for children's voices to be heard.
- We do not believe in hothousing children.
- We do not view children as needing to be fixed.
Children who stay with us for their entire preschool years will be equipped with skills, values and knowledge that would carry them through challenges. They would have all that they need to be successful in what they do AND more importantly, have a happy childhood.
“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning.
But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.”
Fred Rogers
Curriculum is framed around big ideas that children have. Our teachers carefully observe children at play and use those observations to plan the curriculum. Learning is meaningful and interesting to children.
LEARN MORE
If you would like to meet with us to learn more about The Tinker Yard or how our evidence-based practice benefits long-term and holistic development of your child, we welcome you to visit us at the studio. Just drop us an email to make an appointment.
