toys

Less is more. No TV, no computers, no automatic toys. The children are going to show us what *they* think, who they are and what they are really made of.

We feel that children don’t always need to be given or shown figurative imagery. We want to encourage them to express what is going on in their minds, to interpret the world and then express it on their own terms, whether through art, music, drama, or just through dialogue with the people around them.

For instance, at Imagination, we use a project-based method of learning which is inspired by the children's own curiosities. When we take the children down to the Old Port of Montreal for a stroll, they may decide that the boats are very cool. The boats then become our next theme in the classroom. As educators, we load their environment up with boat art, boat books, hand posters of boats, boat music, and then have the children help to make boats out of huge cardboard boxes or papier maché. When it is time for the children to build and draw boats, we won’t cut out cardboard in the shape of a boat and then have them decorate it. In doing so we would be jeopardizing one of the important steps in development, the ability to use the imagination through creativity. We need to have the children create their own boats, to interpret the images that are in their minds and execute those ideas. No matter how little the final product looks like a boat to us is irrelevant, because the children are learning to take images and thoughts that are in their minds and set them out into the world to share with the people around them.

We teach no academics at all. However, we work to develop the ability to comprehend abstract ideas, including comprehension skills in reading and mathematics. This prepares children physiologically for the road ahead, and combined with self-confidence, is a winning combination.