Rose Garden Preschool & More

08/16/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19cFgR7qxZ/

Process art builds fine motor skills. Crafts build fine motor skills. What are your thoughts? 🤷‍♀️

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07/17/2026

Join us for our 25th year of PLAY!

Openings available in our School Age Program

Play. Laugh. Create. Grow.
Prek through fifth grade

207-829-9220
[email protected]
North Yarmouth

'Where children are nurtured with knowledge, fertilized with fun, and cultivated with kindness.'

06/22/2026

It’s wild how much pressure we put on fine motor skills in order for children to write, as if pencil grip is the gateway to literacy.

We correct hand placement, analyze grasp patterns, and introduce paper-and-pencil tasks earlier and earlier, yet writing is built far more on gross motor development and nervous system integration than most adults realize.

Core strength, shoulder stability, vestibular processing, proprioceptive awareness, and postural control form the physical and neurological foundation that allows the hand to move with precision and endurance.

These systems support balance, spatial awareness, pressure regulation, and sustained attention. Fine motor coordination refines movement, but gross motor development stabilizes it.

When those foundational systems are still organizing, the demand for written output often leads to compensation patterns, fatigue, frustration, and diminished confidence rather than true skill development.

What is often overlooked is that this principle extends well beyond writing.

All aspects of learning in early childhood are whole-body, whole-brain processes. Young children learn through movement, sensory exploration, attachment, repetition, and lived experience. Yet we continue to compartmentalize development, isolate skills, wrap learning in artificial themes, and extract concepts from meaningful context. In doing so, we risk misunderstanding how learning actually occurs during this stage of life.

There is a striking irony in pushing academics earlier and earlier while lacking a widespread understanding of how early childhood development unfolds. Learning in the early years is embodied, relational, and integrative. When adults deeply understand this, early childhood environments look and feel different. They prioritize movement, regulation, play, collaboration, and time. They honor developmental progression rather than accelerating output. And the result is not less learning, but stronger, more sustainable learning.

Before asking children to do more, it may be worth asking whether adults need to better understand the process itself

06/19/2026

https://neurochild.com/library/the-work-of-playing/

Play is how children build their brains. What research tells us about the many forms of play and what each one does.

06/13/2026

05/18/2026

I am so grateful to receive this honor.

05/14/2026

05/14/2026