Children's Experiences at Gorse Child Study Center

The Gorse classroom space is organized into learning areas designed to encourage children to learn social skills and to become independent and creative learners. During the day at Gorse, the children do many open-ended activities such as painting, making collages, building with large and small blocks and playing in the pretend place. They explore and experiment with a variety of materials and learn to make things work and to solve problems. Through these experiences, they learn about physical concepts such as color, shape, weight and movement, develop early literacy and math skills and deepen their understanding of the natural and social worlds. Every day all the children participate in a group time when they sing, discuss the day's events and listen to stories. Our classrooms have attached covered porches so that children can play outside even in wet weather. The overall goals of the program are constant, but the daily and weekly activities are flexible as children's interests and questions emerge and change.