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Written by the team at Dashing Ducks Castle Hill
Learning Through Play in Castle Hill: Our Trip Around the World
Learning through play in Castle Hill sounds like a phrase off a brochure, and it turns up on every childcare website in the country, ours included. It is accurate and it is vague. So here is what it actually looked like in our preschool room one morning in July.
The room became an airport. Not a corner of it, the whole room. There was a check-in desk, a luggage drop, a security line and rows of chairs set out like an aircraft cabin. Every child was handed a passport and a boarding pass with their own name printed on it.
First stop, Mexico
The children queued at check-in, handed over their bags, walked through security, found a seat, buckled up and waited for take-off. Destination Mexico, chosen because the World Cup was on and most of them had been hearing about it at home.
The room already had a globe and a world map on the wall. Both got a lot more use once there was a reason to look at them. Where is Mexico? How long does the flight take? What is on the other side of the world from Castle Hill?
That is the part that is hard to manufacture. A child who wants to know something will stay with a map far longer than a child who has simply been handed one.
The setting-up counted too. Somebody had to decide where the security line went, what a luggage tag should say and how many seats each row needed. The children argued about it, which is usually a sign the thing belongs to them rather than to us.
Following Miss Kartia's route around the world
The flight was not a one-off morning. It opened a longer project built around Miss Kartia’s trip around the world. The children follow where she goes next, what she eats, the landmarks she sees and the new words she picks up along the way.
Having a real person at the other end changes the tone of it. The countries stop being pictures in a book. Somebody the children know is actually standing there, so the questions get smaller and more specific. What is for breakfast? What does the money look like? How do you say hello?
Projects that run for weeks rather than a single session are a big part of how our preschool room works. Children get to come back to an idea, change their minds about it and build on whatever they worked out last time.
Learning to ask "how are you?" in other languages
Alongside the travel, the preschoolers have been learning to say “how are you?” in a range of languages and trying them out on each other. It sounds like a small thing. It is not.
Plenty of our Castle Hill families speak more than one language at home. When other languages are part of the ordinary routine at the centre, a child’s home language becomes something to offer the group rather than something they leave at the gate. Raising Children Network has a plain-English summary of what early exposure to other languages does for children.
The greetings also gave the quieter children an easy way in. A new word is a low-risk thing to try out loud, and it does not matter much if you get it wrong.
This is Outcome 2 of the Early Years Learning Framework at work: children are connected with and contribute to their world, which includes respect for diversity. Nobody announced that to the children. They learned a greeting and used it on each other.
What learning through play in Castle Hill gives children
Underneath the passports, a lot of ordinary skills were getting a workout. Queueing at check-in and waiting your turn. Following a sequence of steps that has to happen in the right order. Spotting your own name printed on a boarding pass. Handing your bag to somebody else and trusting you will get it back.
Pretend play does a fair amount of the heavy lifting here. Working out what happens at an airport, in what order, and what each person is meant to do is planning and memory and negotiation all at once, dressed up as a game.
Those are the skills that make the first term of school easier, and a game teaches them far better than a drill does. That is what learning through play in Castle Hill is quietly doing underneath the costumes and the boarding passes. Families comparing centres can read about the national quality standards behind all of this on Starting Blocks, the government site for parents.
The trip is still going. The children have a globe, a map, an itinerary and somebody worth following, and no firm idea where they are landing next. If you would like to see what learning through play in Castle Hill looks like on an ordinary Tuesday, our Castle Hill centre is a heritage home with a sensory garden and plenty of space outdoors, and we are always happy to walk families through it. Get in touch to arrange a time.
Come and meet our ducklings
Some things are easier to show than describe. If you would like to see the rooms our Father’s Day morning filled up, and how a normal day at our Croydon centre actually feels, come and spend twenty minutes with us. Book a visit, or read what other Inner West families have said about us first.
Dashing Ducks
Friendly, Experienced Team
Family-Owned, always
Nutritious Meals daily
Our learning environment is designed to inspire curiosity and creativity, fostering a love for exploration while supporting every child’s.
01
Holistic Learning
Approach
We focus on nurturing the whole child—academically, socially, and emotionally ensuring they develop essential skills.
02
Safe & Supportive
Learning
We prioritise safety and well-being, providing a secure online space where children can explore, learn, and grow.
03
Proven Adaptive
Learning
Focusing on each child's strengths, boosting confidence and academic performance with measurable progress.
