Educational Insights
Why Themes?

Young children are always looking for meaningful relationships in their environment. Studying themes promotes development of concepts rather than unrelated facts.

There's more to each activity than meets the eye. For example, throughout the year there are several activities relating to cultural holidays that your family may or may not usually observe. Each holiday gives your family or learning group an opportunity to discuss the differences and
similarities between families and cultural groups whether or not you choose to observe these holidays. In the process, you will also be meeting several learning outcomes for Kindergarten and Grade 1, including:

• identifying groups and places that are part of our lives
• identifying similiarities and differences among families

Many of these learning outcomes will be explored from a different perspective in other themes such as Community and All About Me.

What is the Educational Value of each activity?

Each activity addresses different developmental skills.
> complete list of skills

Why are the activities organized day by day?

The Kits are organized in this way to make it easier for the parent, teacher or caregiver to plan how they will use the kit and materials. Of course, the “calendar” is only intended as a guide and can be rearranged according to your schedule and your child’s interests. See our Kit Comparison to see which kit fits your schedule best.

Why don't you provide time estimates for activity lengths?

We have purposely excluded an estimated length of time to complete each activity. Every child has different skills and interests, so what may take one child 5 minutes to do may keep another busy for 2 hours.

You may find that your child will want to repeat an activity several times over the week or you may want to try an activity again on another day if it doesn’t catch your child’s interest on the first try.

Let your child be your true guide. Remember, the exploration of an activity and following the child’s lead as to when to take an activity further is more valuable than getting all of the activities done within an allotted time. The value of the process will always outweigh the importance of the finished product.