Making Sense & Nonsense: Preschool Has One-of-a-Kind Offering

The United Methodist Preschool (UMPS) is proud to announce its newly completed Makerspace.

The first preschool in New Canaan to receive accreditation through NAEYC, (The National Association for the Education of Young Children,) UMPS’s innovative STEAM-based curriculum successfully prepares children to thrive in kindergarten and beyond.

The Makerspace provides a new home for UMPS to take their STEAM play-based curriculum to a deeper level by providing a collaborative space for making, learning, exploring and sharing. The Makerspace presents children aged 3-5 years old with design challenges. Through tinkering (using stuff), making (using stuff to make stuff), and engineering (using stuff to make stuff that does stuff), children are engaged in the same creative processes and actions that engineers and scientists use.

“The new space will enable the children to create, explore in-depth, and work on long-term projects,” says UMPS Board member Margaret Pastel. “This is unique, as most preschool projects are often completed in one day and are rarely returned to.” In the Makerspace, children will construct, improve, dismantle, imagine and redesign long-term projects, fostering creativity and higher-level thinking skills.

“Exploration is natural for children. When they haven’t been told something won’t work, they frequently succeed where others have not,” says Mark Mathias, a long-time member of the Westport Public Schools Board of Education and founder of Maker Faire Connecticut. “Trial and error creates resiliency and shapes innovators who aren’t afraid of bumps along in the creative process.”

United Methodist Preschool is inviting the public to an open-house of their Makerspace on Saturday January 11, from 10-11 am. Activities will be provided for children.