Curriculum Meets Curiosity with Kodo and Teaching Strategies

A strong curriculum gives teachers a meaningful direction for learning. The materials in the classroom give children a way to enter that learning for themselves. For programs using The Creative Curriculum® for Preschool, choosing the right Creative Curriculum classroom materials can help turn an objective or interest area into an experience children can actively explore.

That connection is at the center of Kodo’s partnership with Teaching Strategies. Together, we offer open-ended preschool materials designed to support The Creative Curriculum®, strengthen classroom interest areas, and give children more opportunities to investigate ideas through play.

The partnership is a natural one. The Creative Curriculum® uses play-based, project-based investigations to build confidence, creativity, critical thinking, and whole-child development. Kodo creates durable, open-ended tools that invite children to test an idea, notice what happens, make a change, and try again.

One provides the instructional framework. The other helps make that framework tangible.

A shared approach to play-based preschool curriculum

The Creative Curriculum® is a play-based preschool curriculum built around studies that begin with topics children can explore in meaningful ways. Rather than treating learning as a series of disconnected activities, Creative Curriculum studies give children time to ask questions, examine real objects and events, develop theories, and revisit their thinking.

Kodo’s open-ended preschool materials are designed for that same kind of sustained investigation. They do not prescribe a single result or tell children exactly what to make. A ramp can become part of an experiment about motion, a roadway in dramatic play, or a system for transporting natural materials. Transparent tubes might be used for observing, sorting, building, sound exploration, or storytelling.

Because the materials can take on different roles, teachers can use them across multiple interest areas instead of bringing them out for one isolated lesson. Children can also return to the same material with a new question, a new combination, or a more complex plan.

That flexibility matters. When a material leaves room for children’s ideas, teachers gain a clearer view of what children understand, what they are testing, and what support might help move the investigation forward.

Creative Curriculum classroom materials that work across interest areas

Creative Curriculum interest areas are an important part of the preschool classroom. They organize the environment while giving children regular opportunities to make choices, use materials independently, collaborate, and deepen their play.

Kodo and Teaching Strategies offer Creative Curriculum materials for seven major interest areas: blocks, art, dramatic play, discovery, outdoor play, sand and water, and toys and games. Programs can choose the larger Teaching Strategies Kodo Kit or select Interest Area Kits based on the needs of their classrooms.

The goal is not to confine a material to one area. It is to give teachers a thoughtful starting point while preserving the freedom to follow children’s ideas.

For example:

• Ramps, balls, wheels, pipes, and tunnels can enrich block play while opening investigations into speed, distance, force, shape, and cause and effect.

• Funnels, stackable pans, and transparent containers can support measuring, transferring, comparing, and observing in sand and water or discovery areas.

• The Rainbow Pegboard and translucent color materials invite patterning, spatial reasoning, design, and color exploration in art, discovery, or toys and games.

• Building components and reusable connectors help children turn cardboard and loose parts into structures, props, inventions, and collaborative plans.

• Water-responsive surfaces and adaptable mark-making tools create space for experimentation with line, shape, representation, and change.

These experiences may begin in one interest area and travel into another. That movement is not a departure from the curriculum. It can be evidence that children are making connections.

Supporting Creative Curriculum studies without scripting the play

When teachers begin a study, it can be tempting to search for an activity that visibly represents the topic. But the most useful Creative Curriculum classroom materials do more than illustrate an idea. They allow children to investigate it.

During a Buildings Study, children might use blocks, building sticks, wheels, and connectors to plan and revise structures. In a Tubes and Tunnels Study, transparent pipes, ramps, balls, and loose parts allow children to compare what travels through a pathway and what gets stuck. Materials for sorting, threading, stacking, and patterning can take on new relevance during studies of clothing, trees, signs, insects, or the classroom community.

The teacher does not need to determine the full course of the play in advance. Instead, the teacher can introduce a small set of relevant materials, observe how children use them, and make intentional choices about what to add next.

A ball rolling too quickly may lead to a conversation about slope. Water spilling beyond the container may prompt a child to redesign the system. A structure that will not stand may invite comparison, prediction, measurement, or collaboration.

In each case, the problem is not separate from the learning. It is where the learning becomes visible.

Connecting open-ended play with GOLD® objectives

The partnership also connects The Creative Curriculum® materials to Teaching Strategies’ research-based Objectives for Development and Learning. The Kodo Kit was developed to support more than 24 objectives, and its teacher resources include alignments to Creative Curriculum interest areas and learning objectives.

That does not mean every interaction needs to become a formal assessment moment. It means teachers can recognize meaningful development within play that is already happening.

As children build, transport, sort, balance, pour, connect, and revise, teachers may observe evidence of:

• Persistence and flexible problem-solving

• Cooperation and negotiation

• Fine- and gross-motor development

• Classification, patterning, measurement, and spatial reasoning

• Scientific inquiry and understanding of physical properties

• Oral language, vocabulary, and representation

• Planning, recall, and symbolic thinking

Open-ended materials create multiple ways for children to participate and communicate their thinking. A child may explain an idea in words, demonstrate it physically, repeat a process, arrange materials into a pattern, or invite another child into the plan. This gives teachers more than one way to notice competence and decide how to respond.

Preschool classroom materials designed for repeated use

Teachers already carry the work of planning, observing, documenting, individualizing, and responding. Preschool classroom materials should make that work richer, not add another collection of one-time activities to manage.

The Teaching Strategies Kodo Kit includes 16 versatile products, downloadable teacher resources, and virtual training to support implementation. Interest Area Kits allow programs to expand particular parts of the environment. These Creative Curriculum classroom materials are selected for durability and repeated use, giving teachers tools they can adapt across studies, seasons, groups, and developmental levels.

The materials also work well together. Ramps connect with balls, wheels, tubes, blocks, and sensory materials. Containers can be used for sorting one day and dramatic play the next. A pegboard can support color exploration, patterning, design, storytelling, or collaborative construction.

Instead of asking teachers to prepare something entirely new each time the exploration changes, these materials help them reconsider what is already available: What new question could this material help children explore? What combination might extend the current play? What are children showing us they are ready to investigate next?

Kodo and Teaching Strategies: a partnership designed for real classrooms

The Creative Curriculum® and Kodo share an understanding that children learn by actively making sense of the world. They need time to explore, materials worth returning to, and teachers who can recognize the learning unfolding in front of them.

Through its partnership with Teaching Strategies, Kodo offers more than a collection of preschool classroom materials. The complete Kodo Kit and seven Interest Area Kit categories help connect curriculum goals with the real work of children: building, testing, carrying, arranging, pretending, negotiating, wondering, and trying again.

For teachers, that means more ways to respond to children’s thinking. For program leaders, it means durable materials that support an established curriculum across multiple interest areas and studies. For children, it means a classroom filled with possibilities they can act upon.

Looking for Creative Curriculum classroom materials that support investigation across studies and interest areas? Explore the Kodo and Teaching Strategies partnership, including the complete Kodo Kit and Interest Area Kits.

Explore Kodo + Teaching Strategies