For over 7 years, Tinkergarten has been on a mission to spread a love of learning and nature throughout the country by offering play-based learning to kids in community parks including Laguna Niguel Regional Park, Mason Regional Park, Heritage Park, and Cedar Grove Park. Geared towards ages 6 months to 8 years, the outdoor classes are designed to engage and inspire kids in building skill sets around empathy, collaboration, creativity, persistence, and problem solving.
This Fall, the curriculum supports kids in developing cognitive, social/emotional and physical skills, with every lesson putting a special emphasis on the season’s focus—Sensory Learning. Many of us remember learning about the five senses in elementary school. The “familiar five” are relatively easy to identify and to connect to visible body parts, so they offer a great starting place for talking about senses with kids. At Tinkergarten, they consider all seven senses as they design nature-based, playful, learning opportunities—the familiar five, plus two “hidden” senses called proprioception and vestibular. Although often “hidden,” both proprioception and vestibular are essential and impact how we are able to process and integrate the others. Nature truly is the ideal, sensory environment—inherently filled with such supportive learning opportunities. When we are outdoors, we hear sounds all around us, have endless opportunities to move our bodies, and are surrounded with light, color, scents, textures, and more. The surfaces are uneven and there are reasons to look up, down, and all around us. Nature offers the incredible mix of being calming, constantly changing, and stimulating to all of our senses. It simultaneously puts us at ease and at full attention—the dream combination for learning.
The Fall session is starting now. And great news – Tinkergarten is offering South OC Moms a 10% discount on your first session. Use promo code SOUTHOCMOM at checkout, link here: Tinkergarten
Take the opportunity to nurture your children’s love of nature and with Tinkergarten’s play-based learning classes and join other families in getting outside Click here to find a Tinkergarten class at your local park. Tinkergarten
