May 18, 2022

While childcare has not been operating at the Seneca ECE Lab School at Newnham Campus due to the pandemic, students, lab educators and professors in the School of Early Childhood Education (ECE) have been making good use of the space.

Pre-pandemic, the teaching lab offered Seneca and surrounding communities with a full-time childcare program for children 18 months to four years old. It closed temporarily in March 2020 due to COVID-19, making it challenging for students to work with children and practise theories, curriculum development, classroom design and pedagogy.

“Our students needed to get in and play,” said Tanya Andrejas, Manager, ECE Lab School. “They needed to see things through the eyes of children to understand the theories they learned in class and translate them into their practice as educators.”

With the gradual reopening of in-person activities on campus this year, ECE faculty reimagined the closed childcare centre and transformed the lab into adult-sized studio spaces designed for painting, charcoal drawing, sculpting, digital media, light and shadow, block play and more. There’s even a “messing about” room for exploring math and science.

“We amplified specific areas of a typical ECE classroom and recreated a giant model of an ECE classroom that is immersive,” Ms. Andrejas said. “It has become a community hub for us and mentors we work with in the industry.”

ECE students have also had opportunities to experience nature play at King Campus under the guidance of professors and forest and nature school practitioners. 

Julie Galang started the ECE diploma program during the pandemic and is finishing her studies this summer. For her, the studios provided her with inspiration and a better understanding of what it’s like to be in an ECE classroom from a child’s perspective.

“I’ve been able to develop some new ideas on how to engage children,” she said. “The professors just let us be in the studios. The experience of having that freedom to rearrange things and imagine what we can do without constraints has brought out our creativity.”

Ms. Galang also got to interact with her professors and classmates in person for the first time.

“I want to spend more time in all of the different rooms,” she said. “It’s been amazing.”

Monique Phillips, another ECE student, says it’s all about possibilities.

“It’s a place for exploring the idea of the classroom as the third teacher, and the relationship children have with their environment,” she said. “It’s also a chance to reconnect with your inner child.”

For example, the light and shadow room features a projector that can cast a moving scene of a river onto the floor.

“I was drawn to it immediately,” Ms. Phillips said. “I remembered the magic of being a child. It’s like reconnecting with an old friend. For me, to be hands-on and experience what a child would experience is really refreshing.”