If you walk into DAZI around midday, don’t be alarmed. Yes, someone is probably racing a car down a homemade ramp. Someone else might be belly-laughing while “cooking” in the kitchen area—stirring loose parts into a bowl and handing out imaginary samples to nearby friends. Over in the corner? A group is constructing an obstacle course using every pillow, block, and chair they can get their hands on. And just outside the movement and sensory room, a child is walking very slowly with a flashlight held like a lantern, humming to themselves in deep concentration.
At first glance, it might look like chaos.
But if you stay just a little longer—if you pause, take a breath, and really look—you’ll start to see the story unfolding.
What you’re actually witnessing is harmony. Not the quiet, orderly kind we’ve been conditioned to equate with “good behaviour,” but a deeper, messier, more beautiful kind. The kind that happens when children are truly engaged, when they feel safe, confident, and curious. The kind of harmony that can only emerge in a space where play is taken seriously and children are trusted as capable, creative thinkers.
Around here, we call it midday magic.
In one area, a few children are negotiating the rules of a car game they just invented. There’s no referee, no adult assigning roles—just the natural back-and-forth of collaboration. Across the room, someone is carefully mixing “soup” with dry materials like pom-poms and buttons, while narrating their recipe to a nearby friend. Meanwhile, at the water table, children are deeply engaged in experimenting with pouring, floating, and sinking—getting just the right splash as they test what holds water and what doesn’t.
It’s noisy. It’s active. And yes, it’s a little wild. But it’s also deeply intentional.
Our educators aren’t standing at the front of the room with a lesson plan in hand—they’re down at eye level, listening, documenting, occasionally stepping in to support or model, but mostly giving the children space to lead.
Because here’s the secret: what looks like chaos is actually learning in motion.
Children don’t need to sit still and repeat after us to learn. They need room to move, to test ideas, to experiment, to connect, to fall down and try again. They need opportunities to build—not just towers, but relationships, resilience, and confidence.
So if you walk in and wonder what’s going on, just ask us.
We’ll say: “This is what engagement looks like.”
“This is belonging.”
“This is childhood—real, rich, and unfolding in real time.”
And if you’re lucky, you might be offered a tiny plastic cup of imaginary soup or get recruited to judge a very serious car ramp competition.
Welcome to midday at DAZI. It’s our favourite kind of magic.
Rosetta
