Modeled after the Italian teaching philosophy of Reggio Emilia, and the Danish Forest School model, Play by the Park offers a progressive way to learn. We recognize that birth to five are the most significant years in your child's development. Children are veritable sponges, absorbing their environment, gaining valuable experience, and essentially building the foundations of knowledge. Our mission is to provide a learning environment based in and around the way children grow and learn best. As teacher guides, we encourage children to explore the environment and assist them in making connections to the world through play, art, movement, and observation.
Toddler Preschool
Play by the Park provides an environment that is centered on developing the whole child through exploration in art, science, outdoor education, social interaction, emotion awareness, early literacy, language, music, movement, tumbling, community exploration and more.Play by the Park is a home based, Reggio Emilia-inspired, early learning program that serves 2's and 3's. The program runs Monday through Friday with morning and afternoon half-day options. Parents are encouraged to choose the days (2-day and 3-day per week options) that are right for their family.
We operate on the New York City public school calendar during the months of September–June. We have a 1:3 teacher/child ratio and maintain a small class size. Fully insured.
Curriculum
The Play by the Park
classroom is a living, breathing environment. We believe children
thrive in nature, making observations and being guided in their
interpretation and understanding of the natural world. Using the amazing
resource of Prospect Park, our children spend most of their working day
playing and exploring a natural environment. Our classroom flows from the woods and fields to our comfortable, dynamic indoor space, where observations are reinforced and expanded. Everywhere we find ourselves, whether traipsing through the marsh, studying sea lions at Prospect Park Zoo, storytelling on the big red rug, or delving into construction with blocks, we carry our basic approach—Inspire, Play, Learn.
We subscribe to an emergent curriculum, which means that academic progress is inspired and determined by the interests of the children. Our indoor space features natural, artistic, and dramatic materials for play with very little in the way of plastic, commercialized toys. Our half-day curriculum includes but is not limited to:
Most importantly we are guided foremost by the needs and talents of each individual child as well as what is best for our class as a whole. We encourage family style dining, providing healthy snacks with organic milk. Even mealtime is an opportunity to learn valuable social skills!
