At Inglweood Preschool we believe that preschool children need, and in fact, must play in order to learn about their world.  We have numerous different play stations in the school, including the following:

• Art centre
• Playdough table
• Dress-up and kitchen area
• Sand table
• Water table
• Musical instruments
• Puzzle and table toy area
• Block corner
• Reading corner
• Indoor climbing frame

Our class structure is as follows:

• The Three's Class
• The Four's Class

Value of the Art Centre:

• Develops creative thinking: e.g.: mixing yellow and blue paint to make green can lead into other subjects such as science (by experimenting and discovering the properties of materials).
• Provides a means of communication and self-expression: the child can express his/herself in ways that cannot be communicated by other means.
• Provides an emotional release: paint, playdough, slime, finger paint and other art tools allow a child to express upsets and act out private feelings.
• Strengthens self-concept and confidence: encourages them to think for themselves and use their own ideas.
• Increases self-understanding: discover their own points of view, own choices, may prefer to work alone or in a group.
• Heightens aesthetic awareness and sensitivity by sharpening all their senses.
• Enhances the ability to visualize: to see a mental picture of what is not there; encourages original thinking.
• Provides problem-solving/decision-making opportunities: by making countless decisions regarding arrangement, paste, paint, colours, etc.
• Develops an appreciation for others' individuality: there is more than one right way to do something.
• Integration of the individual; integrates all of one's experiences: thinking, feeling, perceiving, and relates them to one another.
• Serves as a balance to classroom activities.
• Aids physical coordination: develops large and small muscles, hand/eye/ mind coordination and spatial relationships.
• Develops work habits and a sense of responsibility.
• Aids the adult in understanding and helping the child: children's pictures show what they have experienced visually, physically and emotionally.
• Generates joy!

Value of Playdough and/or Clay:

• Provides an emotional release: pounding, hammering etc. allows a child to express his/her private feelings.
• Encourages tactile development.
• Enhances socialization: children can play individually while verbally communicating to all those around the table.
• Enhances creativity as children explore different tools, shapes and manipulation techniques.
• Promotes fine motor skills: children will roll snakes and snowmen.
• Develops fine motor skills and eye hand coordination.

Value of the Dress-Up and Kitchen Corner:

• Provides opportunities for children to act out their feelings and concepts of their world and the people around them.
• Provides children with an opportunity to understand others by being with others.
• Allows children to feel a sense of control as they take on the role of others.
• Encourages the sharing of materials and ideas.
• Enables children to contribute their own ideas to a group.
• Develops abstract thinking skills
• Develops social problem solving skills.
• Enhances children's understanding of others and encourages the development of feelings of empathy.

Value of Sand Play:

• Provides children with an area to relax with the media and center all of his/her attention on the task at hand.
• Provides an opportunity to learn about size and measurement.
• Develops an understanding of the properties of sand: how it feels when it is wet and when it is dry, how it flows through our fingers and how it takes the shape of the container it is poured into.
• Develops math skills: concepts such as more than, less than and equal.
• Encourages problem solving: how to keep the mountain from falling down or the hole from getting filed.
• Develops cognitive skills: prediction "Where is the shovel hiding?" and cause and effect "What happens when we pour this much water in the sand?"
• Enhances vocabulary: words such as gritty, grainy, coarse, fine, measure etc.
• Develops fine motor skills through pouring, digging, patting sifting etc.

Value of Water Play:

• Provides an opportunity for soothing andor quiet play.
• Develops an understanding of water's properties: wet, warm, cold.
• Introduces concepts: volume, empty and full, floating and sinking.
• Provides an opportunity for experimentation.

• Allow children to explore sound vs. silence.
• Children learn to locate the source of sound.
• Children learn to distinguish between different sounds.
• Instruments develop auditory memory and allow the practice of auditory sequencing.
• Instruments further develop a child's exploration of singing and movement.

• Explores the relationship of shapes and sizes, of qualities and quantities. This enhances reading and math readiness.
• Develops eye/hand coordination, fine motor skills and manual dexterity.
• Develops reasoning and problem solving skills: why doesn't a certain piece fit together?
• Develops logical thinking and learning through trial and error.
• Develops self confidence as a child achieves success through his/her efforts.
• Encourages perseverance and concentration: a puzzle enables a child to work towards a completion of a project.
• Encourages creativity: geoboards etc. have an open ended concept and thus encourage creative play and building.

Value of Block Play:

• Aids in physical coordination: develops large and small muscle coordination and control, fine motor skills, eye/hand coordination, spatial relationships and visual perception.
• Encourages problem solving and cooperation.
• Develops an understanding of different perspectives: skills in design, representation, balance and stability.
• Develops vocabulary: children learn to describe sizes, shapes and positions.
• Develops math skills: children group, add and subtract with the blocks.
• Provides an opportunity for children to "create" things from within the world around them.
• Fosters autonomy and initiative: in the block area a child starts from "scratch".   There is no framework... the child creates the "set" and the "drama".
• Provides an opportunity for a child to use his/her imagination to create something from their own thinking.

• Reading to children will encourage them to become readers.
• Encourages problem solving and cooperation.
• Children will learn about many different subjects.
• Books are a way of passing on values.
• Books are entertaining.
• Books offer answers to questions.
• Books provide emotional relief.
• Books build language skills.

• Provides an area where children can release some of their energy.
• Develops the large muscles.
• Encourages body awareness