Early childhood education is not a race to see how quickly a child can learn to read or write. It is a time to inspire wonder, creativity and curiosity while embracing play as a child’s primary expression of social-emotional, linguistic and physical development. In a corner of the room, three children, two girls and a boy, peek through a large magnifying class. It appears they are looking at different colored stones. Laughter erupts as one of the children replaces a stone with a small rubber dinosaur. Quickly the other two children follow suit and within seconds there are a dozen colored dinosaurs under the magnifying glass. Soon the children are matching the dinosaurs by color and counting to see how many they have. Here’s an example of what you will see, hear and feel in our early childhood education learning spaces.