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Tiny Town Learning LAb

Play with Purpose: The Educational Vision Behind Tiny Town

Where Curiosity, Creativity, and Community Meet

Tiny Town Solano is not just a play space—it is a Living Learning Lab that blends child development, experiential learning, and community connection into one powerful environment.

We believe children learn best when they are free to explore, experiment, experience, and engage.
That belief forms the foundation of our 4 E’s Framework, which shapes every exhibit, program, and interaction inside Tiny Town.

Our 4 E’s Framework

🔎 Exploration

Children follow their natural curiosity, investigate ideas, and make independent choices in open-ended environments—building intrinsic motivation and cognitive flexibility.

🧪 Experimentation

Through STEM challenges, loose parts, building, and problem-solving, children test theories, learn from mistakes, and develop critical thinking and innovation skills.

🌱 Experience

Learning is embedded in real-life, sensory, and hands-on experiences that connect the mind and body—deepening understanding, memory, and emotional connection.

🤝 Engagement

Children collaborate, communicate, role-play, and build relationships—developing social-emotional intelligence, empathy, leadership, and community awareness.

Every area of Tiny Town is intentionally designed to meet children where they are developmentally—while gently guiding them toward the next stage of growth across cognitive, social, emotional, and physical domains.

This is not entertainment.
This is play as a research-backed pedagogical model.
A living ecosystem where learning is visible, measurable, and transformative.

We draw from the latest research in developmental psychology, early childhood education, and experiential learning, designing environments where children can:

Role-play real-world scenarios

Building social understanding, empathy, language skills, and executive function through meaningful imaginative contexts.

Experiment through trial and error

Developing problem-solving ability, resilience, critical thinking, and innovation by testing ideas with real materials and immediate feedback.

Collaborate, problem-solve, and build emotional intelligence

Engaging in peer interaction, negotiation, leadership, and conflict resolution within structured and unstructured group experiences.

The Four E’s Framework

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Exploration

Children are encouraged to roam, observe, and interact freely with their environment. Whether they’re shopping in the market or taking care of pets in the vet zone, they’re discovering new ideas and possibilities through self-directed play that awakens curiosity and confidence.
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Experimentation

Every zone offers open-ended materials and opportunities that invite trial and discovery. Whether building with blocks, inventing in the Maker Lab, or navigating traffic in the car zone, children learn through doing — and re-doing — as they test, imagine, and problem-solve.

Experience

Learning becomes lived. Through repetition and reflection, children begin to connect what they discover to how they think, move, and relate. These moments of “I did it!” help knowledge settle into memory and skill, turning play into lasting understanding.

Engagement

Our spaces are intentionally designed for connection child to environment, child to peer, and child to adult. Engagement transforms learning into community: it strengthens communication, emotional intelligence, and cooperative play, helping children see themselves as part of something bigger.

Why It Matters

This isn’t passive entertainment. It’s active learning, rooted in:

  • Constructivist educational theory

  • Developmental psychology

  • Real-world readiness

Here, play is not a break from learning — play is the learning.

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Our Value

Learning Through Zones

Each zone is a micro-lab of its own — inviting children to learn through hands-on discovery. Here are examples of some of Tiny Towns Zones

Market + Café (Socio-Emotional + Math)

Children practice social interaction, early numeracy, and executive function as they “shop,” “serve,” and navigate roles of customer and worker.

Maker Lab (STEM + Creative Thinking)

Our open-ended maker space encourages design thinking, engineering basics, and perseverance. It’s not just about creating something, it’s about learning how to think.

Health + Vet Clinic (Empathy + Literacy)

Through role play in our medical zone, kids process fears, express empathy, and build vocabulary related to health, anatomy, and caretaking.

City + Car Zone (Spatial Reasoning + Logic)

Here, kids map roads, test cause and effect, and develop early systems thinking as they navigate traffic setups and build their own urban designs.

And Others

Curriculum

🧪 Learning Lab Design Philosophy

Tiny Town Solano is grounded in key principles of constructivist learning, including:

  • Piagetian developmental theory: Children build knowledge actively, not passively.

  • Vygotsky’s social learning theory: Social interaction fuels cognitive growth.

  • Multiple intelligences: Our zones engage linguistic, kinesthetic, spatial, and interpersonal intelligences simultaneously.

  • Reggio Emilia influence: The environment is a co-teacher — thoughtfully arranged to prompt questions, connections, and dialogue.

  • Montessori method: Emphasizing independence, sensory-rich materials, and real-world tasks, our environment supports purposeful exploration where children take the lead in their own learning journey.
  • The Three E’s (Explore, Experiment, Engage): Children build foundational knowledge by interacting meaningfully with the world around them.
Curriculum

Psychology + Education Collaboration

We’re currently developing partnerships with local psychologists, educators, and child development professionals to observe, refine, and elevate our model.

This includes:

  • Data collection on how different types of play impact developmental outcomes

  • Workshops for parents and educators on learning through play

  • Pilot programs for small group instruction and family coaching

 

We welcome partnerships with universities, education programs, community orgs, and childhood development researchers.

Right:

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