Our PlayHouse Preschool Durham

This week is our December Food Drive! We will be collecting non-perishable food items until 12/12 to donate to the Community Pantry at the Scrap Exchange in Lakewood.

OPH will operate on a two-hour delay tomorrow, 12/9, and will open at 10:30 AM. We will share any updates if anything changes. Stay safe and warm!

“You can make anything by writing.” – C.S. Lewis. Join us for a tour and see how all our classrooms provide countless opportunities for children to make their mark. Click the link in our bio and schedule your tour today! 📸 by Morgan Henderson Photography
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Let’s talk about process over product. Part of any learning experience is the process one goes through to fully understand new information. For young children, seemingly simple activities such as painting or stamping, can be quite complex for those who have never done it. By putting a variety of materials out in an aesthetically pleasing way, teachers invite children to explore new mediums without the pressure of having to produce a final product. For some children, that may mean using their hands to feel the paint for the first time as they question, how does paint feel on my skin, what happens if I put my painted hands on the paper? For other children, perhaps they have already become familiar with the medium itself and experiment with using other materials combined with the paint to make a mark. Investigations like this allow children to explore at their own pace and use their own curiosity to process the information presented to them. Here, the Willow House teachers thoughtfully reflected, “well, we have been testing out several types of natural stamps in different shapes and sizes, but most of our friends are more curious about finger painting and that’s where we have happily landed”.
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A morning in Maple. Our preK class engages in fun, creative, play based provocations that incorporate collaborative and independent play skills, art, literacy, and fine motor work, stem education, and most of all joy and curiosity as they learn through play! Find out more about our Reggio-Inspired program by scheduling a tour, link in bio.
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Outdoor art provocations combine both the natural elements of our beautiful wooded playgrounds and the children’s natural curiosity for creative explorations. Interested in learning more about our Reggio inspired school? Click the link in our bio to schedule a tour!
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Willow house friends explore magnets! Friends discovered which objects “stick” and which ones do not. They even tried different tools, like a magnifying glass, to see if that would work to pick up the metal materials. The friends used phrases like “it’s sticking” to describe what they observed and teachers introduced scientific language, saying “yes, the wands are magnetic. The magnets are picking up the metal.” It’s never to early to incorporate STEM education into play-based learning! 🧲 🧲
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Last week a friend in Maple said, “did you know the word tinker comes from the ‘tinking’ sound you make when you bang two things together?” Well, we did a little research and it turns out that friend was correct! Not only did we have a fabulous week tinkering, we all learned something new thanks to the curious minds of our preschoolers!
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Our youngest campers are having fun with this week’s dinosaur theme by making dinosaur tracks in play-dough, and working hard together to complete dinosaur puzzles. What great team work friends!! 🦖 🦕

Sprouts love books, the shade of the magnolia tree, but most of all they love Teacher Cindy!! 📚 🌳 ❤️
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