Young children are eager to ask questions, conduct their own investigations, and make decisions about their activities. As part of the Project Approach in the Toddler Three Class, teachers observe and build upon the interests of the children. Teachers gain this information through the discussions, play, and artwork of the children. It is then the teachers’ job to provide children with materials and opportunities to construct their own knowledge. As children initiate what learning takes place, they develop their confidence as lifetime learners. Before addressing academic concepts like the alphabet and numbers, young children must learn to interpret their unique experiences in order to develop an intellectual “habit of mind,” or a disposition to theorize, analyze, hypothesize, and synthesize the world around them. Children must learn how to make predictions, grasp consequences of actions, persist in seeking solutions to problems, and speculate about cause-and-effect relationships. A curriculum should provide contexts in which these intellectual dispositions can be strengthened.
The types of activities that benefit young children involve singing, listening to and reading stories, building structures, painting, participating in dramatic play, among others. When children are curious, absorbed, and interested in topics, the benefits of the Project Approach are realized. When children initiate, investigate, and follow through on their interests, that sense of curiosity and love of learning develops strongly.