MONROE, N.C. — Some students at Shiloh Valley Primary School are experiencing a different kind of lesson in school, and it’s centered around play.
While it may seem like the kids are just playing, their teacher Cara Suarez has carefully crafted an activity to teach skills in literacy and math.
“They’re grouping and sorting, they’re classifying objects, they’re counting, but then they’re also writing. So they’re writing the menu. They were counting the letters in the words after they wrote the word fruit,” said Suarez. ”So they’re doing so many different things at one station.”
Shiloh Valley Primary is the first Union County public school to roll out a play-based learning pilot, which takes up about an hour of the school day.
Principal Lindsey Williams says they saw a need for students to be more engaged and presented the idea to the district after hearing positive feedback from other districts like Cabarrus County.
“For example, our literacy block is an hour long,” said Williams. “It’s really hard for students to sit and maintain engagement for an hour, and our goal as educators is to ensure that our students grow and are proficient.”
Students have only been in class for three weeks, but Suarez says she’s already seen the difference. She says kids are excited to play and unknowingly are learning too.
“I love it. I absolutely love it. It really brings the joy to teaching,” Suarez said. “You get to see the kids interact. You’re excited about what you’re planning. You’re watching them grow.”
UCPS says they plan to see how the pilot goes, and will discuss ways to possibly expand the program to other schools.