Creative Curriculum is a structured early childhood curriculum that combines play, teacher-guided learning, and project-based investigations. Montessori, Reggio Emilia, HighScope, and Waldorf take different approaches to how children learn, how classrooms are organized, and how much independence or structure children receive.
For parents, the useful question is not which label sounds best. It is what your child will actually do all day, how teachers guide learning, how much independence or structure the classroom provides, and whether that approach matches what your family wants from preschool.
What Does “Curriculum” Actually Mean in Preschool?
An early childhood curriculum is more than a list of letters, numbers, books, or activities. It shapes what children learn, how teachers introduce ideas, how the physical environment is arranged, how play is used, how progress is observed, and how much choice individual children receive.
That distinction matters because parents sometimes compare Creative Curriculum, Montessori, and Reggio Emilia as though they were competing textbook programs. They are not.
Creative Curriculum and HighScope are fairly defined curriculum systems. Montessori is a broader method with its own materials and classroom structure. Reggio Emilia is an educational philosophy developed within a municipal school system. Waldorf comes from another distinct educational philosophy. An eclectic or play-based preschool may borrow useful ideas from several approaches without claiming strict fidelity to any one of them. That is why we encourage parents to look beyond the name on the brochure.
Preschool Curriculum Approaches at a Glance
| Approach | Origin and Core Idea | What the Classroom and Day Usually Feel Like | What It Costs Parents | May Appeal to Families Who Value |
| Creative Curriculum | U.S.-developed comprehensive curriculum; learning through play, teacher-guided experiences, and project-based investigations | Interest areas, dramatic play, books, blocks, art, small groups, studies, teacher observation | No standard tuition; individual schools set their own rates | A balance of play, clear learning goals, assessment, and teacher planning |
| Montessori | Developed by Maria Montessori in Italy in the early 1900s | Orderly, child-sized environment; specific hands-on materials; long self-directed work periods; mixed-age learning is common | No standard Montessori tuition | Independence, concentration, practical skills, choice, and individual pacing |
| Reggio Emilia | Developed through municipal early childhood schools in Reggio Emilia, Italy, after World War II | Collaborative projects, art and expressive materials, visible documentation, flexible investigations based on children’s questions | No standard Reggio price | Creativity, group exploration, communication, projects, and family participation |
| HighScope | U.S. model connected to early education research in Ypsilanti, Michigan | Predictable daily routine, active learning, interest areas, small and large groups, and Plan-Do-Review | No standard tuition | Choice within a consistent structure and intentional reflection |
| Waldorf | Developed from Rudolf Steiner’s educational work; first Waldorf school opened in Germany in 1919 | Storytelling, music, rhythm, imaginative play, nature, practical activities, and simple materials | No standard Waldorf tuition | Imagination, predictable rhythms, art, storytelling, nature, and slower introduction of formal academics |
| Eclectic / Play-Based | A blended approach rather than one proprietary curriculum | Centers, free play, teacher-led lessons, art, dramatic play, music, outdoor activity, routines, and small groups may all appear in one day | Depends entirely on the center | Flexibility and a balance between child-led play and teacher-guided learning |
A curriculum name alone tells you very little about tuition. Preschool cost depends on the individual provider, hours, age group, staffing, services, funding, and schedule. Those costs are not determined simply by whether a program calls itself Montessori, Reggio, or Creative Curriculum.
What Is the Creative Curriculum for Preschool?
Creative Curriculum is a structured early childhood curriculum that uses play and project-based investigations to teach across developmental and academic areas.
Diane Trister Dodge developed and self-published an early edition of The Creative Curriculum in 1978, and Teaching Strategies now develops and provides the curriculum. The current Creative Curriculum for Preschool uses play-based studies and hands-on, project-based investigations to support learning across language, literacy, mathematics, science and technology, social studies, the arts, physical development, cognitive development, and social-emotional development.
What the Classroom Looks Like
You may see defined areas for blocks, dramatic play, books, art, discovery, writing, or manipulatives. Materials are chosen so children can explore ideas while teachers intentionally connect play to specific skills.
A class studying buildings, for example, might read books about construction, compare shapes during math, create structures with blocks, draw plans in the art area, and talk about different jobs.
That is what project-based investigations mean in this context. The subject connects several content areas rather than existing as one isolated lesson.
What the Day Feels Like
The day is usually structured but still active. Teachers have teaching guides, learning goals, routines, small-group experiences, read-alouds, and planned activities, while children still spend meaningful time choosing materials and learning through play.
What It Costs
Creative Curriculum itself does not determine the tuition parents pay. A private preschool, publicly funded program, community center, or child care program can use the curriculum, so you need to compare the individual center’s tuition and schedule.
Who Might Like It?
It may appeal to parents who want play-based learning but also want teachers to have defined learning objectives, planned investigations, and a systematic way to observe development.
What Is Montessori?
Montessori is an educational method built around independence, carefully prepared environments, specific learning materials, and children’s ability to work at their own pace.
Maria Montessori developed the model in Rome in the early 1900s and opened the Casa dei Bambini in 1907. A peer-reviewed comparison of Montessori, Reggio Emilia, and Waldorf describes the Montessori teacher as a guide who prepares a child-centered environment and supports self-directed activity.
What the Classroom Looks Like
A Montessori preschool typically has low shelves, child-sized furniture, organized materials, practical-life activities, sensory materials, and designated work areas.
Materials are not simply toys placed around a room. Many have a specific purpose and are introduced to children through demonstrations.
What the Day Feels Like
Montessori days often include long periods when children choose work independently or with peers. Teachers observe, present new materials when appropriate, and intervene less frequently than they might in a more teacher-directed pre-K curriculum. The atmosphere may feel calm, purposeful, and highly organized.
What It Costs
There is no universal Montessori tuition. The method can be used in private, public, charter, and other educational settings, so the individual school’s rates matter more than the label.
Who Might Like It?
Montessori may appeal to families who value independence, concentration, practical skills, orderly environments, hands-on materials, and individual pacing.
What Is the Reggio Emilia Approach?
Reggio Emilia is an educational philosophy that treats children as capable thinkers whose questions, relationships, creativity, and ideas can shape the direction of learning.
The approach developed through Reggio Emilia’s municipal infant-toddler centers and preschools in Italy, with educator Loris Malaguzzi playing a central role in its development. Reggio Children, the organization controlled by the Municipality of Reggio Emilia and responsible for promoting and safeguarding the approach, identifies relationships, family participation, the environment as an educator, documentation, and children’s many forms of expression, the “hundred languages”, as central principles.
What the Classroom Looks Like
A Reggio-inspired classroom may contain art materials, loose parts, natural objects, building materials, photographs, children’s drawings, transcripts of conversations, and displays showing how a project developed. The physical environment itself receives significant attention.
Teachers often document what children say and do so they can revisit ideas and decide where an investigation might go next.
What the Day Feels Like
The day may feel collaborative and exploratory rather than tightly sequenced around a prewritten curriculum.
For example, if children become fascinated by shadows, teachers might introduce flashlights, drawing materials, books, outdoor observations, measurements, dramatic play, and questions about light. The investigation could develop over several days or longer.
What It Costs
There is no standard Reggio Emilia tuition. U.S. schools often describe themselves as Reggio-inspired, and implementation can vary considerably from one program to another.
Who Might Like It?
It may appeal to families who value creativity, group problem-solving, communication, art, children’s interests, documentation, and long-term exploration.
What Is HighScope?
HighScope combines child choice with a particularly predictable classroom routine. Its early roots are connected to the Perry Preschool work begun in Ypsilanti, Michigan, in the 1960s. Today, active participatory learning remains central to the model. HighScope classrooms use open-ended materials, intentional adult-child interaction, consistent routines, observation-based assessment, and its signature Plan-Do-Review sequence.
What the Classroom Looks Like
Expect clearly arranged interest areas and materials children can reach and use independently. Teachers work alongside children and help extend their thinking rather than controlling every activity.
What the Day Feels Like
HighScope is especially recognizable because of Plan-Do-Review. A child decides what they want to work on, carries out the plan, and later reflects on what happened. The day also includes small groups, large groups, movement, meals, cleanup, social interaction, and free exploration.
What It Costs
HighScope does not set family tuition. Programs purchase curriculum resources and training, but parent tuition depends on the individual provider.
Who Might Like It?
HighScope may appeal to parents who want child choice without giving up a predictable schedule and clear teaching framework.
What Is Waldorf Early Childhood Education?
Waldorf early childhood education emphasizes imagination, rhythm, storytelling, music, creative play, nature, imitation, and practical activity.
Waldorf education grew from Rudolf Steiner’s educational work, and the first Waldorf school opened in Germany in 1919. The Association of Waldorf Schools of North America describes early childhood education as centered on wonder and imagination, with storytelling, music, creative play, nature exploration, and predictable daily rhythms playing important roles.
What the Classroom Looks Like
You may see simple or natural play materials, spaces for imaginative play, art materials, seasonal objects, and materials that children can transform through their own imagination.
The Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America emphasizes free imaginative play, imitation, and simple, natural materials rather than highly detailed playthings that determine how children must use them. Activities can include storytelling, singing, painting, movement, practical tasks, outdoor play, and other artistic experiences.
What the Day Feels Like
Rhythm matters. Rather than constantly switching activities, a Waldorf early childhood program typically follows familiar daily and weekly patterns.
Waldorf early childhood guidance places strong emphasis on imitation, free play, recurring rhythms, stories, songs, artistic activity, movement, and practical work. WECAN’s guidance also describes early childhood as a period in which teachers generally rely less on direct verbal instruction and more on modeling, rhythm, activity, and imaginative experience. Formal academic instruction is generally less prominent in the early years than it is in more academically explicit preschool programs.
What It Costs
Again, the philosophy does not create a standard tuition. Parents need to compare each school’s actual schedule and fees.
Who Might Like It?
Waldorf may appeal to families who place a high value on imaginative play, art, music, storytelling, nature, repetition, and a less academically explicit preschool experience.
Families considering it should also ask how the individual school interprets Waldorf’s philosophical roots today rather than making assumptions from the name alone.
What Does Eclectic or Play-Based Preschool Mean?
An eclectic/play-based program combines practices instead of following one named system with strict fidelity.
A classroom might use Montessori-style independence during centers, project work reminiscent of Reggio, teacher-planned literacy similar to a comprehensive curriculum, and plenty of dramatic play, art, music, outdoor movement, and social-emotional learning. That does not automatically make the curriculum weaker.
In practice, the important question is whether those pieces fit together intentionally. Teachers should be able to explain what children are learning, why an activity is being offered, how they adjust for individual children, and how they know when a child needs more support.
You will see many NYC centers describe themselves in terms such as play-based, child-centered, developmentally appropriate, or blended. We would not claim that a specific percentage of NYC centers use an eclectic model because there is no public citywide curriculum census establishing that figure.
What It Costs
There is no standard eclectic or play-based tuition. The term describes how learning is organized, not a pricing model.
Who Might Like It?
This approach may appeal to families who want flexibility and do not need a school to follow one educational philosophy exclusively.
Which Preschool Curriculum Is Best?
There is no curriculum label that automatically makes one preschool better than another. A strong program should be able to show you how the philosophy appears on an ordinary Tuesday morning, not simply name it on a website.
When we talk with parents, we recommend asking questions such as:
- How much of the day is child-directed versus teacher-directed?
- How do teachers introduce early literacy and math?
- What happens when a child becomes deeply interested in a topic?
- How much time is available for dramatic play, art, movement, and outdoor activity?
- Does every child complete the same activity?
- How are social skills and conflict resolution taught?
- How do teachers assess progress without turning preschool into elementary school?
- How do you adjust activities for children developing at different rates?
- What does kindergarten readiness mean in this classroom?
A beautifully branded philosophy cannot compensate for weak implementation or adults who cannot explain why they teach the way they do. That is one reason we also encourage families to meet the teachers and leadership behind the program, not simply compare curriculum descriptions.
What We Actually Do at Little Me Daycare Center
We do not describe Little Me as a Montessori, Reggio Emilia, Waldorf, HighScope, or Creative Curriculum school. The most accurate description of our preschool approach is structured, eclectic, and play-supported.
Our Brooklyn preschool program for ages 3 to 5 combines early literacy and math with social-emotional development and kindergarten-readiness skills. A typical day includes free-choice centers, morning meeting, literacy, math, outdoor time, art, music or dramatic play, small-group activities, and free play. That balance is intentional.
We want children to recognize letters, explore numbers and patterns, follow multi-step directions, build fine motor skills, solve problems, communicate, take turns, and become more independent. But we also know those skills develop through relationships, routines, play, creativity, movement, and repeated learning experiences, not worksheets alone.
Our Educational Director, Venette White, leads our educational community and works with teachers and families to support each child’s development.
Choose the Classroom, Not Just the Label
Creative Curriculum, Montessori, Reggio Emilia, HighScope, Waldorf, and play-based programs can all create rich early childhood learning experiences when their principles are implemented thoughtfully. Your next decision is therefore not simply which philosophy sounds most appealing. Look at the real classroom: the teachers, routines, materials, relationships, expectations, play opportunities, learning goals, and how comfortably you can picture your child spending the day there.
At Little Me Daycare Center, we combine structured kindergarten preparation with play, art, music, outdoor activity, social-emotional learning, and individual support rather than presenting ourselves as a single-method school. If you are comparing preschool options in Crown Heights, you can schedule a tour of Little Me Daycare Center to see the preschool room, meet the team, and watch what an ordinary day actually looks like.