Kiddiwinkles offer a practical child-centred approach where children are respected as individuals and encouraged to learn and develop at their own pace.
Theory of Mixed Age Play
Mixed age play offers opportunities for learning and development not present in play among children of the same age. Research shows that mixing of children of different ages in early childhood centres has many advantages. It has an impact on a child's cognitive, social and emotional development. When two year olds play with five year olds they use more complex forms of symbolic play or pretending.
Mixed age play can enlarge a child's vocabulary and their ability to empathise. A mixed age environment has a very stimulative effect on infants particularly. They can learn various social and cognitive skills from imitating preschool children, even from just watching them play and interact. The behaviour/play of older children offers role models for the younger children who receive more emotional support from older children than they would from children their own age.
Mixed age play also permits older children to learn by teaching and to develop their leadership skills. There doesn't even have to be a big age difference in order to see the benefits. Four year olds can raise the level of play for three year olds. Toddlers with older playmates in mixed age groups score higher in language, cognitive and motor development than toddlers in otherwise similar age segregated groups – measured by the Battelle development Inventory.
Children by nature want to do what older people do – this is how they grow. Five year olds who see older children reading books, playing ball and climbing trees want to do this and they integrate these activities into their own play, even when they are not directly playing with the older children.
At Kiddiwinkles Care and Learning Centres we celebrate the value of mixed age play, offering opportunities to children whenever we can – it's a wonderful time for siblings to meet, play together and share emotional support during their day.
The rapidly changing global condition of children and childhood requires new collaborations with new approaches to all that we do with and for children. One area of change is the disconnection of children from the natural world. Children increasingly face challenging societal, technological and environmental conditions that are producing deteriorating trends in physical and mental health; at the same time, existing educational approaches and conditions are inadequate to enable them to meet and overcome these challenges, much less secure their future.
We want to transform our approach to environments, health, and early education.
For children, from babies onward, discovering their own humanity and its relationship to nature begins very early in life.
How can we raise children who care about their earth if they do not first have an opportunity to learn to appreciate and investigate it? Children should be exposed to many elements of the natural world and have an opportunity to develop a sense of their surroundings so that they grow to understand that nature does matter. Especially, young children cannot find this kind of experience inside. Reading about the way the plant grows is never the same as digging the dirt, planting the seed, spilling a little water when caring for it, and watching it daily for some sign of growth and life.
We do know that reconnecting babies, toddlers and young children to the natural world:
- is crucial for their optimal intellectual and physical development - provides a sense of refuge and healing in a sometimes violent and frightening world; - helps them grow into adults who care about environmental stewardship; and, - nurtures a sense of shared community among the world’s peoples.
We are inspired by the
Reggio Approach
The Reggio Emilia Approach is an educational philosophy based on the image of a child with strong potentialities for development and a subject with rights, who learns through the hundred languages belonging to all human beings, and grows in relations with others.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Autem dolore, alias, numquam enim ab voluptate id quam harum ducimus cupiditate similique quisquam et deserunt, recusandae.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Autem dolore, alias, numquam enim ab voluptate id quam harum ducimus cupiditate similique quisquam et deserunt, recusandae.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Autem dolore, alias, numquam enim ab voluptate id quam harum ducimus cupiditate similique quisquam et deserunt, recusandae.
