The concept of a play school doesn’t have anything to do with academics but lots
to do with developing the Childs age-appropriate social behavior. Nursery and
pre-nursery schools usually have 10-20 children from the same or nearby
localities spend 1-2 hours each day under the supervision of Montessori trained
teachers.
Play schools lay no stress on the child’s performance but on the contrary emphasizes
on child care and the sensory-motor and the social development of the child. It
is the playschool that observes whether the milestones of normal growth and
development are being achieved by the child or not.
Some well recognized
play schools are well equipped with a motor skills room, a drama and theatre
room and a language room. Apart from basic toilet-training where children are
asked to bring their portable potty bowls, some nursery and pre-nursery schools
make the children visit the toilet at frequent intervals as part of their
toilet training activity.
Almost all the
children in the age group of 1+ and 2+ have an innate sense of imitating
adults. This is the concept most play schools operate on. Soft toys and gender
oriented toys are provided to children to transfer behaviors used during
playtime such as feeding a doll, or combing its hair, a child will soon apply
to itself in due course of time.
In a play school the
supervisors focus on teaching children the age-appropriate behaviors through
observation and imitation." Though most Nursery and pre-nursery schools
adopt the play way method of teaching and helping the children enact nursery
rhymes, the children also participate in role-play exercises." The aim is
that each activity at the playschool actually becomes a learning experience for
the child.
The children in turn
learn how to share their food with others, talk politely, eat with social
manners, visit the toilet, control their bladder and open up with people they
are otherwise not used to. Brawling children, holding on to their parents on
the first day of school is a common sight and nursery and pre nursery schools
puts the smile back on their face making them confident little children.