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It's hard to watch our children struggle. We've been taking care of them since they were born, when they couldn't communicate or navigate on their own. However, allowing them to face difficult situations is essential for their learning. Do Not Set Their Limits Don't assume that they best your child can do is what you've seen them do before. Imagine it's time to put shoes on to leave the house - your child goes and grabs their shoes and puts them on their feet. You've never se

Imagine a child at school, learning about ways to respond to emotions such as anger, sadness, and frustration. Let me guess - you imagined a classroom with four walls. I’ll go even further to guess that most likely, you imagined a teacher at the front of a room or the head of a circle. Maybe the teacher is showing pictures of different faces with emotions and discussing how to use their words with friends instead of pushing or hitting. Now, imagine a child outdoors. And I’ll

Can Play Really Prepare my Child for Kindergarten? For parents just diving into the play-based preschool world, this is always a top concern, and a valid one. The last thing any parent wants is for their child to be "behind" or to struggle compared to their peers. This is why a lot of early childhood education programs use playful activities over play . They continue to give into the pressure of teaching 3 and 4-year-olds letter tracing, names of letters, and drill them on co

When you visit our website, you'll notice that the first title we give our program is truly play-based. I added the word "truly" because our program differs greatly from the hundreds that now claim they are play-based. Yes, many of those programs use fun in their activities and allow children time for hands-on learning, but that doesn't make it play. At Wild Wonders, we consider play to be intrinsically motivated, self-chosen, and child-directed. We want a child to decide - I

When I opened Wild Wonders Play School, I had one simple hope: to create a space where children could just be children - free to explore, to play, to get messy, and to grow in their own way, at their own pace. I didn’t set out to build a program full of Pinterest-perfect activities or rigid academic milestones that are simply not developmentally appropriate. What I care about most is honoring the real work of early childhood - the digging, the running, the observing, the nego