The Preschool - Grade 3 Experience

List of 2 frequently asked questions.

• Why We Play: The Power of Play at Nashoba Brooks School

  When it comes to learning, work and play are not mutually exclusive; they complement one another. For children, one is literally not complete without the other. 

   

   by Jacqueline Waters

   

  In our over-scheduled, fast-paced lives—where child anxiety, depression, and stress continue to rise—it is imperative to understand the importance of play and to protect it. At Nashoba Brooks, we work hard at play because we know what years of educational research supports: play is valuable and necessary for healthy social, emotional, and cognitive development.  

   

  Step inside Michelle Perreault and Kelley Jammal’s Preschool classroom, and you will notice the room has been cultivated intentionally to promote cooperation. Perreault views child-directed play as integral to the development of autonomy gained throughout the year. Time outside to investigate, collect, and explore the seasonal changes allows all students opportunities for discovery and a chance to refocus and decompress. “We honor what they need,” Perreault remarks. “Play is crucial to their mental and emotional health.”

  
  

  “Our core values, like integrity and collaboration, are invoked through play,” agrees Assistant Head of Lower School Jane O’Connor. “Play keeps us nimble,” she says. “You can always connect through play.” O’Connor points out that play is an invitation for the mind to expand and highlights a classroom makerspace as a place where students go to invent. “Play is not idle time,” she says. “It’s a chance to explore.”

   

  In the art rooms, Lisa Stanley and Kara Angeloni Williams invite students to explore materials. They can uncover all of the properties of glue—and of cardboard and oil and acrylic paints—and they can discover what happens when they mix and blend colors. Some children want perfection, but Stanley and Williams encourage them to play, to try new things, to be curious and persistent.

  
  

  “We have fun here, and we are not afraid to say that,” exclaims Assistant Head of Middle School Regina Nixon. Whether building a collaborative fort outside, or using cardboard boxes to create our own version of Caine’s Arcade in Grade 3, students are “engaging in a passion” here, and teachers are sharing their passion with students.

  
  

  All around Nashoba Brooks, students actively investigate, negotiate, and iterate. In jazz band, they are encouraged to improvise. On the new Middle School play structure, they are encouraged to connect. When it comes to learning, work and play are not mutually exclusive; they complement one another. For children, one is literally not complete without the other.

  
  

  “Creative problem solving, critical thinking, flexibility, empathy, metacognitive awareness: these are all skills that will serve students well in a future in which many of the jobs our students will hold have yet to be imagined,” explains Head of School Danielle Heard. “We are giving them opportunities to play intellectually.” She is quick to mention that entrepreneurs and those on the cutting edge of technology become successful through ingenuity—and the confidence to play. “They are not following anyone else’s script,” she says.  At Nashoba Brooks, neither are we.

   

  Books mentioned in this article and recommended reading:

   

  Free to Learn by Peter Gray

  Brain Rules by John Medina

  Beautiful Oops! by Barney Saltzberg

  Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv

  The Play’s the Thing: Teachers’ Roles in Children’s Play by Elizabeth Jones & Gretchen Reynolds

  Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain by John Ratey

  Power of Play: Learning What Comes Naturally by David Elkind

  Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi 

• An Evening Under the Stars: Kindergarten Night Magic

  Culminating their integrated classroom unit on nighttime, Kindergarten students and their families gathered at Nashoba Brooks School for Kindergarten Night Magic, a beloved decades-long School tradition and an important part of the Kindergarten curriculum.

   

  After an early sunset on November 8, everyone took part in a wide a variety of night-themed activities, including stargazing with science teacher Kelly Western, playing with glow in the dark balls in a giant parachute with Lower School P.E. teacher Megan McGuin, campfire sing-a-longs with music teacher Paul Benzaquin, and roasting marshmallows with their parents.

   

  For six weeks leading up to Night Magic, students learned about night workers, nocturnal animals, and why the day is light while the night is dark. They read night books, solved night themed math problems, learned about animal habitats, studied the solar system, played cooperative night themed games, wrote books about night, and learned nighttime poems. Night Magic provided an opportunity for students and teachers to share what they have learned with their families, while enjoying a memorable evening at school under the stars.

   

  “Night Magic is a wonderful example of curriculum integration here at Nashoba Brooks,” said Kindergarten teacher Caroline Ashley. “The event incorporated the work we do in our classrooms with music, science, library, art, and physical education.”

   

  Kindergarten teacher Kath Moriarty added “working under the same thematic umbrella makes the subject matter resonate that much more with our students.”

   

  It was a magical evening for students, teachers, and families.