Kindergarten

The sensory gymnasium is every child’s favourite space at Toddler’s Den. It is filled with open-ended and structured challenges that change every week. Children strengthen physical skills and social skills as they walk on balancing beams, wobble on river stone gonges, fall on crash mats, climb on rock walls, jump under parachutes, ride scooters, swing on ziplines, and hang on wallbarz.

Toddler’s Den is equipped with 3 types of outdoor spaces - active, social, and experimental. In the active play area, children have access to open-ended play equipment where they develop their gross-motor skills through playing football, cycling, crawling and climbing on mounds. The outdoor social area is an interactive and collaborative space with a sand pit, water tub, and a pretend play area. In the experimental outdoor area, children experiment with materials that evoke their multiple senses.

We believe that building a strong literacy and numeracy foundation provides young children with a headstart into a world that is based on communicating through words and numbers. Children spend an hour in this area everyday on focussed numeracy and literacy inquiry and projects. This station plays host to learning manipulatives that are inspired by Montessori and Reggio Emilia.

The art and design station has easels, tables, and mirror tables for children to express themselves through art explorations. They can sketch, paint, sculpt, create illustrations, make cartoons, and create textures. Learning to create and appreciate art and design is important for children to understand different languages of communication. Children are invited to reuse recyclable materials such as cotton balls and bottle caps to create beautiful stuff masterpiece.

The reading station is a cozy nook filled with pillows, plush characters, and couches. Storybooks of all genres including science, numeracy, social world, imagination, and emotional intelligence are hosted in this center. Children engage in reading individually or in pairs, listening to read-alouds and performing plays with peers. The reading station also acts as a reef of calm where children can escape the hustle and bustle of the classroom.

The block station is every child’s favourite harbour in the classroom. It has a range of blocks in different shapes, sizes, and characteristics from wooden unit blocks to magnetic blocks. This station hosts collaborative construction of elaborate structures that sometimes transform into sites for dramatic play. Children immerse in problem solving as they make complex structures and build language skills as they talk about the details of their structure with the entire class during reflection time.

The pretend play station is designed in a way that kindergarten children can transform it into different sites of interest such as restaurants, hospitals, pet stores, barber stores, bakeries, beaches, and campsites. Children have access to a range of props and costumes that can be used in many imaginative ways. Children learn to care for these by creating agreements about where different materials will be placed during the school year.