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The first day of school: For kids, it’s the moment when they realize that they can’t spend their entire days playing. For parents, it’s even more terrifying—you’re handing over your sweet, curious (albeit slightly unruly) toddlers and entrusting their learning to strangers. But educators realize that they don’t create lifelong learners in the classroom; they foster them.
“Learning is intrinsically satisfying, and little children know that,” says Cheryl Maayan, head of school for Saul Mirowitz Jewish Community School. “Very young children explore; they learn; they can’t get enough of learning—and if we do our job right, they never stop loving learning.” In today’s classroom, though, educators must answer some tricky questions: When should kids get computers? How much time should kids spend outside? Are fidget spinners and bouncy chairs helpful, or a distraction? The answers are fuzzy, but the goal remains the same: to spark kids’ interest in the world around them and give students the tools that will help them make sense of it.
So how do educators unlock the world for their students? They start by doing it through play.
Learning Through Play
As adults, we feel compelled to justify how we’re spending our time by pointing to its usefulness. We’re earning money, building marketable skills, becoming online influencers, running errands… Leisure time seems like a guilty pleasure.
For young learners, though, play is essential. “Learning happens through play,” says Jess Lorentzen, a preschool teacher at The College School, in Webster Groves. “Through it, kids construct their own learning and meaning out of what they’re interested in.”
But not all playtime is created equal. “Children have to create their own play—that’s the building block of all those 21st-century skills we require of them,” says Laura Johnson, a kindergarten teacher at Saul Mirowitz. “It teaches them cooperation, teamwork, resilience, creativity, and ingenuity.” Instead of giving children trucks and board games, educators at the school hand over materials for students to make their own toys, rules, and boundaries.
The classroom itself plays a pivotal role. “The space should be beautiful. It should have things that are interesting—quality materials,” says Lorentzen, “to inspire them to move, create, and express themselves.”
Outdoor Classroom
Beyond the classroom, the outdoors is a critical space for student growth. Johnson takes her students outside for an hour and half of continuous playtime once a week. Saul Mirowitz has butterfly gardens, a nearby prairie and creek, and other natural elements for kids to explore.
“They choose how they want to move, play, climb,” says Johnson. “When they stack sticks in the creek to build a dam, that’s so rich in so many academic standards that aren’t even in kindergarten—and it’s not something I can re-create in the classroom.”
Brandi Cartwright, head of Raintree School, concurs. Students at the Town & Country–based forest school spend at least three hours outdoors every day. They play, journal, read, and learn outside. Being outdoors, says Cartwright, doesn’t just foster unstructured play; it can also help with focus. “The saying that most forest schools use is ‘Children don’t bounce off walls if there are no walls to bounce off of,’” she says. “There is evidence that the more time children spend outdoors, the more focus they have when they’re in the classroom.”
Johnson agrees that time outside sharpens focus and has other benefits. For instance, students learn the importance of proper footwear and staying hydrated. “I don’t have to fight them on putting on their coats or getting a drink of water,” Johnson says, “because they’re learning about how we respond to nature.”
Let the Kids Lead
Educators across the board agree that one of the best ways to get kids interested in learning is to let them have as much control as possible over what they’re learning. “Kids don’t come in here empty,” says Lorentzen. “They come in here knowing a lot about the world. Even at 3 [years old], they’ve already made a lot of meaning out of their world.”
At The College School, for instance, the 4-year-olds took a class picture at Lockwood Park. The children were enthralled and kept asking their teacher about the trees and animals. The teachers turned the topic into a yearlong project. Kids wrote poems about the “musical forest,” interviewed the head of the Webster Groves Parks and Recreation Department, and made artwork from natural objects found in the forest during each season.
Each class at Raintree comes up with a “big hairy audacious goal,” or BHAG. Last year, 4-year-olds created a cupcake stand with homemade cupcakes. “When the ideas are all coming from the teacher, then you have to come up with these artificial ways of teacher as entertainer, like, ‘I’m the sage on the stage,’” says Cartwright. When students are prompting teachers about an idea, though, “I think that’s the most powerful, longest-lasting way to keep children engaged.”
Setting a goal also teaches the kids to overcome a fear of the unknown. “They’re scared because they’re little and it’s a wild space,” Cartwright says. “No one has given them a chance to direct themselves that much before; that’s scary for adults and for little kids. We do a lot to address that reluctance.”
Even in later grades, in which the subject matter isn’t as flexible, teachers emphasize the importance of choice. At Rossman School, teachers and students collaborate to make the work “meaningful and purposeful for the kids,” says upper school director Gail Clark. Students select a home in Lafayette Square, for instance, and draw it to scale, learning proportion, shapes, and more along the way.
“That’s not workbook pages,” she adds.
Wiggle Room
Kids are notoriously fidgety—especially these days, when they can entertain themselves with the swipe of a finger. The solution? Let them wiggle.
“We have students who sit on therapy balls. We have sensory cushions. Whatever means better learning is something that we advocate for,” says Maayan.
Anything that distracts other students is generally frowned upon (including the popular fidget spinner), but other tools for constructive fidgeting, such as squeezing Silly Putty, standing during lessons, and chewing gum, are generally given the OK.
“We have the kids help design the layout of the classroom,” says Penny Allen, a third-grade teacher at The College School. Allen and her co-teacher asked students to think about the type of environment that would best support learning. Not only did the students think about the layout, but they also picked their spots. From time to time, Allen would ask the students about the environment and where they were seated: Was it still working? What could be improved? “We wanted to help them understand themselves as learners and advocate for what they need,” says Allen.
For young children, it’s especially important to allow them room to wiggle. At some schools, kids periodically take breaks in addition to recess and physical education. Lorentzen also sometimes uses tummy time. “It’s an infant term,” she explains, “but when the kids are extra wiggly and we’re trying to get a little more out of them, we’ll open up that they can lie on their tummy. Then they’re getting sensory input from their whole body.”
Sometimes a simple shift can make a big impact.
Romancing the Screen
These days, kids need to be technologically literate. At the same time, screens can be a huge distraction. How can a teacher achieve balance? For young learners, there’s not a single answer.
Raintree is a media-free school. “We put human power first,” says Cartwright. “We want our students creating things rather than going through programs and systems that adults have made.”
At Saul Mirowitz, kindergarteners do learn computer proficiency—including how to code—but they don’t have laptops with them all the time. Instead, computers are brought in only for lessons in which they’re necessary.
The College School doesn’t have a one-to-one laptop program, but it does introduce technology early. “It engages kids both visually and kinesthetically,” says Allen, “but there should be a follow-up that’s not on the screen.”
The Classroom Is Everywhere
Many schools focus on experiential learning. Allen takes her third-grade classes to Mastodon State Historic Site to see models of megafauna and flora while teaching about the history of Missouri. Sixth-graders at Rossman School visit a Civil War battlefield, the birthplace of Helen Keller, the National Civil Rights Museum, and Space Camp.
For Mahlet Fentaw, a graduate of Saul Mirowitz and current student at Whitfield, class trips stood out. “I think about them to this day,” she says, recalling a three-day visit to Heifer Farm, run by the nonprofit Heifer International. Each student represented a country and received provisions and accommodations commensurate with that country’s economy. Fentaw, who represented Zambia, recalls making a deal with Thailand’s representative to share accommodations and food.
“It opened all of our eyes to the little things we could do to help the world,” Fentaw recalls. “It gave me the opportunity to have my mindset be open to the world. Now, I’m very curious—I’m more curious than I was even as a little kid.”
