Play is at the heart of programs that produce such exceptional results for children in their earliest years.
In learning, there is no divide between work and play. In the early years, play is the work of the child. It is through play that the child learns. For the child, play is so much more than entertainment. Play is complex; it is experimentation; it is scientific. It is how the child learns about the world around him or her and develops cognitively and socially. Through play, the child constructs hypotheses about the physical world, about the social world, tests these hypotheses, and develops theories, always testing, always revising based on what happens during play.
At Eastwood, we value play as the child's work and believe it is the most developmentally appropriate, joyful, and natural way to learn.