Explorer Studio is a fully immersive environment in French or Mandarin.
The path to bilingual
Explorer Studio teachers use the target language to interact and communicate with children and each other 100 percent of the time (except for critical safety instructions, to comfort a distressed child, and to support beginning learners).
Our preschool immersion model helps children achieve fluency in the target language in a nurturing and supportive environment. Our approach ensures that regardless of prior exposure to the language, children begin to immediately use important everyday vocabulary and structures. They quickly gain the tools to communicate comfortably, and learning is reinforced through music, role-playing, games, meaningful play, storytelling, and conversation.
We grow together
It’s all about independence
Our twos are learning how to use language to express themselves and to separate from caregivers. As they form relationships with their teachers and become more independent, they become radical explorers of our open-ended and inspiring materials: paint, blocks, fabric, clay, water, and sand.
While children’s play at this stage is mostly parallel rather than interactive, our teachers foster interaction and connection, supporting children to express their needs and wishes, and to be aware of their classmates. Music and singing help us ease transitions, share a common language, and create joyful music together.
Teachers establish a clear routine and expectations from the beginning of the preschool year, helping children to develop a sense of comfort and trust that will allow them to freely explore, play, and create.
Time to get social!
Our threes, with their expanding language capacity, are brimming with questions and curiosity, and engage in more complex play. They are excited to see their classmates, and work more collaboratively in their dramatic play and at block-building.
They start to visualize the results they want to achieve, and are beginning to think about the process of getting there, with paint, blocks, and other building and art materials.
Children begin to play out scenarios of life around them with dolls, in our kitchen, and with play silks. This rich play often weaves together their ideas about the world, characters from favorite stories, and their own hopes, fears, joys, and struggles.
Nurturing this play is the heart of our threes preschool program, as we support children to invent, solve problems, tell stories, and learn about themselves and each other through play and rich, inviting materials.
Watch out world!
Our fours are solid members of their classroom community and love to take care of their space. They take on classroom jobs and chores with pride. Their growing attention span and desire to collaborate lead to exciting investigations and projects that they may plan and work on over a longer period of time.
Four-year-olds explore essential aspects of identity, friendships, and groups. Children at this stage are learning to name and express the emotions that surface as they navigate these relationships, the work of learning, and classroom life.
At Explorer Studio we present opportunities for children to develop independence, express their thoughts and processes, take risks, and practice collaboration and problem-solving skills. Teachers guide them to pursue their ideas and questions in an environment rich with stories and narrative, meaningful engagement with language, numbers, and wonder.
How we spend our days
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Children arrive between 8:15 and 9 a.m. and choose an activity to transition into their day (building, drawing, hand-eye work, math games, puzzles, and more exploring activities). Once everyone has arrived, children clean up and prepare for Morning Meeting.
After Morning Meeting, children work at atéliers in small groups. Atéliers include early numeracy, science, art, building, early literacy, picture talk, small-motor activities, and clay work.
Then it’s time for a snack around the tables!
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Outdoor play is an integral part of the Explorer Studio day. Several times a day, children go out to play in our backyard play space, work in our front garden, or walk down the street to the playground.
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We eat our lunch around the table together. Then we have quiet time (20 minutes) before getting cozy for a 40-minute nap (children who do not nap rest or choose a quiet activity).
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Our afternoons are filled with work on large-scale collective art or science projects, outdoor time, and dramatic play.
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Join the fun at Explorer Studio during our extended afternoons! Below are some of the activities we practice from 3:00 p.m to 6:00 p.m :
Gardening
Art, drawing & craft
Exercise
Theatre
Fine motor skills
Our children
are free to…
Expand their vision of their world, through imagination, creation, language, navigating conflict, and appreciating difference.
Develop an appreciation of the possibilities of the rich materials at hand, both to explore and create with them and to use them to express ideas and feelings.
Deepen their awareness of what they believe, what they bring from their own world into the classroom, and what they are capable of.
Learn to value being part of a community: building friendships and developing a respectful, flexible, and caring attitude toward others.