School for Young Children's Tri-level curriculum

PLAY CURRICULUM (for children 12 months- 5 years) is a child-initiated curriculum, which permits the young child to select from a well-chosen variety of play materials. These include paint, clay, drawing materials, blocks, puzzles, and make-believe or socio-dramatic play materials. The role of the teacher is to design a well-balanced play area, evaluate the level of play of each child, and use appropriate methods or techniques to promote the play to a more advanced level.

THEMATIC CURRICULUM (for children ages 3-5 years) involves the teacher’s stimulation of learning around a theme (such as rabbits) in order to keep the children highly motivated to learn. The curriculum follows a progression from,

providing the child a learning experience either verbally (reading a book about rabbits) or motorically (petting and caring for a real rabbit); to
helping the child to process new information through questioning; to
Having the child represent this knowledge through play, in symbols (e.g. painting pictures about rabbits) and in signs (written or spoken words).

These experiences cluster around a theme or study that now becomes a “shared reality” or content for classroom play.