Why Choose Play-Based Preschool?

If you are looking for a preschool program for your child... perhaps a preschool in Washougal,WA, or a preschool in Camas, WA... you may wonder whether you should choose an academic-based or play-based program. It may be tempting to choose an academic-based program, as the very words "academic-based" suggest that it will prepare your child for elementary school. 

There was a time when it was a very common thing to say that a preschooler's brain was like a bowl of Jell-o. It was soft, and pliable, and parents and teachers needed to "put in" as much information and skills as they could before the Jell-o "set." So, academic-based preschool programs became popular. 

In an academic-based preschool, the priority is to teach academic skills. Teachers create lesson plans based on getting children to recognize letters, numbers and colors, teaching them to read and do math, practice handwriting, and more. They spend a lot of time sitting down working on worksheets. There may be art projects involved, but art projects tend to be closed-ended. In other words, if the teacher tells them they are to paint an apple tree, they had better paint an apple tree with a brown trunk, green leaves, and red apples, just as the teacher instructs them. 

Part of the reason academic-based preschools came about was to help children from low-income families, or children whose parents did not have much education, to become school-ready by the time they turned five. 

However, research later showed that children who went to academic-based preschools did not do better, in the long run, than children who did not attend this type of preschool, or who did not attend preschool at all. The children may have initially done better in kindergarten, but later on in elementary school the results evened out. 

In fact, while the children's academic advantages had evened out by the end of first grade, they struggled in other areas more than their peers. They lost motivation to learn, and exhibited more behavioral problems. 

In a play-based preschool program, children spend lots of time doing activities of their own choices. For example, a child who loves to paint will begin to naturally learn about colors and shapes. When children choose to play a board game, they learn about taking turns, playing fairly, and dealing with disappointment, as well as academic skills like counting the correct number of spaces to move. 

At Someday School, we do mix in some academic skills. But these skills are introduced through thematic units, games, and kinesthetic activities. Some of the playful activities children recently participated in at Someday School included using tweezers to remove small objects from slime and then counting them, riding on scooters to find alphabet letters, singing songs to learn alphabet sounds, and using magnets to build their names. 

Another large part of Someday School's program involves introducing children to situations, and then allowing children to ask questions and make discoveries. When children ask, "Why did this happen?" or "What will happen if I do this?" they are learning for the sake of learning. We want them to be motivated to find things out for themselves. 

If you are looking for a play-based preschool in Washougal or a preschool near Camas, contact Someday School to find out more!