All parents expect that their child will be safe and cared for. But what if daycare could provide more than the minimum for your child and your family? What if you sent your child off each day assured they would become smarter and more confident?

That is the magic of an educational daycare centre. When a daycare centre focuses on helping children to learn and grow, you will see the difference.

When you arrive at a daycare centre for a visit, it can be busy, loud, and sometimes even overwhelming. This is because the children are usually hard at work – which is to say that they are engaged in focused, purposeful play.

Play is at the centre of any high-quality, developmentally appropriate early-childhood curriculum. The key to understanding why lies in the unique ways young children develop.

Children are scientists

A lot of what adults see and experience are familiar and no longer inspire wonder. If something falls, grown-ups intrinsically understand gravity is at play. For a child, every falling object is fascinating, unexpected, and demands more study.

Children are scientists. Being a teacher in an educational daycare centre is all about harnessing the child’s inherent curiosity. Teachers don’t simply sit around supervising play; they actively curate a space that allows children to experiment.

It is the teacher’s role to help children think and speak about their discoveries and understanding. For toddlers, this might mean using vocabulary in a new and novel context. For preschoolers, this involves knowing what questions to ask to challenge their thinking.

At daycare, a million “aha!” moments happen every day. It might be while building with blocks, playing pretend, or writing a story. No matter what, play allows learning to remain a joyful process for children and teachers alike.

Children are creative

Children are given the opportunity to express their creativity through play. All writing starts as scribbling, after all.

Educational daycare centres allow children to explore materials that interest them. For some, this could mean playing with Play-Doh. Others might paint on an easel, rip up construction paper, experiment with collages, or finger-paint.

Every messy exploration builds physical and creative muscles that help children express themselves.

Children need companionship

“Circle time” is a classic component of early childhood education. Coming together has wonderful implications for social and emotional development. Children learn to follow routines, listen and share.

Direct instruction often takes place while the group is gathered in the classroom. It will look different for every age group. A good teacher knows their “audience” and will cater their teaching time to the attention span of their learners.

Often, the whole class comes together to discuss a theme. They will read, write, and discuss it to build their understanding of the topic and the world.

Often, this theme will also become a component of children’s play. Teachers will change up the materials and activities available. This provides opportunities for the children to put their new learning into context.

Poems and songs

Poems and songs are a hallmark of early childhood and are key components of early language development. The skills built through song directly contribute to reading ability.

Both music and poetry contain sounds, rhyme and rhythm, which contribute to the development of phonemic awareness. This is a child’s ability to hear and comprehend the sounds that are part of their language.

Phonemic awareness becomes essential as children start to engage with the alphabet. It helps them learn there is a sound-symbol connection involved in reading.

Music is fun and joyful. Finger plays can help young children build hand-eye coordination and develop fine motor muscles – skills that can help them transform into writers and artists as they grow.

Songs and poems have the added benefit of teaching vocabulary and academic concepts in a memorable and accessible way. Children love to sing their way through everything, from the days of the week to the parts of a plant!

The value of stories

Gathering to read and listen to stories is essential as stories allow children to voyage beyond the world they occupy.

Books also have the benefit of teaching children the concepts of print, which are the building blocks of reading. Through exposure to books, they learn the essential elements of how text works.

Even if children do not yet know “how” to read, they can interact with words and pictures in a way that helps them build meaning.

Learning to love stories early will lead to a love of reading later in life as children build positive associations with books. This makes them enthusiastic learners when it’s time to learn to read on their own.

Conclusion

Running a daycare centre involves a solid understanding of child development. The best educators provide children with care while expanding their world.

At a quality centre, your child will return home each day bursting with stories, songs, vocabulary, and excitement.

Dennis Relojo-Howell is the founder of Psychreg. Connect with him on Twitter @dennisr_howell.