When we give tours at Skytown, the Director often says that one of the only formal curricula we practice is the practice of self-care: giving children space and support to take care of and trust their own bodies. Watching children wash their hands, go to their cubbies, and get bags that are half their size to carry to the lunch table always fills the teachers with joy.

Two students were covering a white PVC pipe with sand to hide it so "it's a surprise to people." Children often get into big sand projects, but this one seemed really purposeful, like they had a plan.

Today, there were some loose parts out for students, where the teachers anticipated free exploration around making binoculars or using toilet paper rolls to make machines. One can never predict exactly what will happen; but it is always something to look forward to.

One student was playing solo with the sailing ship, working to figure out which way the wind was blowing to adjust the sails accordingly. Another student came by with a watering can and started watering the ship. The first student said, "No," and a teacher intervened as the other student was turning to leave with his watering can. The teacher asked him what he was wanting from his friend. "I wanted to clean his ship for him!"

At Skytown, we don't force students to share. Instead, we work to make each child feel like they are valuable enough to enjoy or use a toy or object as much as they want before it is someone else's turn. Forced sharing can make a child feel like they aren't worthy enough to have the fire engine or the red bucket by themselves, implying that their friend's desire is more important than their own engagement with the toy or object.

We work not to push children to perform for us as adults. We refrain from saying phrases such as, "Show me how you can get across the monkey bars" or "Show me how far you can jump.” Those kinds of requests make a child's work on the monkey bars or jumping about the adult as an observer. Children become performers, rather than doing the activity because of their own interest and according to their own abilities.

Navigating a co-op with a newborn can be a big transition, which is why Skytown prioritizes supporting our "superhero" families with maternity/paternity leave, community meal trains, and even playdate trains!

One of our parents returned to the classroom this week with her newborn, and she had so much gratitude to share.

We teachers talk a lot about play-based learning being important for confidence-building. And when we do, we often put it in the context of social confidence: confidence in peer-to-peer interactions, invitations to play, expressing rules of games, and even declining to play—all the play skills we’ve been exploring.

But there’s also the confidence that comes from being in, and owning, a space.

We have been working hard on putting on capes. Just two weeks ago, I remember a participating parent prompting one of our students to lay the cape he wanted to wear flat on the floor, and think about how it would get from there to around his neck. The student was not super thrilled with this idea, but took it in stride. He was looking at it the same way he looked at the other costumes he had figured out how to put on by himself—the dinosaur costume or the giraffe costumes.

Co-regulation is generally the process where two people help each other manage emotions. In our Skytown space, we are talking about the dynamic between an adult and a child. 

We help children figure out how to regulate their own emotions in at least two ways: (a) by modeling how we handle our own emotions, and (b) through co-regulation.

Skytown is a play-based, emergent curriculum school, which means we are always watching for ways to help children expand their play. Play is, after all, how we believe children learn at this age. At Skytown, that’s what our children spend their time doing, and we believe that through play, children learn to problem-solve, act out sociodramatic scenes that make them feel powerful in their world, and explore the environment we offer them.