Early Childhood Innovation Lab™
Big Ideas Begin with Little Innovators.
Ages 3–6 | Play • Explore • Create • Grow
The ILA Early Childhood Innovation Lab™ is a community-based early learning experience designed to help young children build the skills, confidence, curiosity, and creativity they need to thrive in kindergarten and beyond.
This is not a traditional preschool.
Instead, the Early Childhood Innovation Lab™ complements preschool, childcare, and family learning by bringing hands-on, play-based innovation experiences directly into schools, early childhood centers, churches, community organizations, and other trusted neighborhood spaces.
How Does the Innovation Lab Work?
Young children learn by doing.
Inside an Early Childhood Innovation Lab™, children don't simply complete worksheets or memorize information. They investigate questions, build things, create, experiment, move, communicate, collaborate, and solve problems.
Every Innovation Lab follows our simple learning pathway:
EXPLORE → CREATE → PRACTICE → SHARE→EXPLORE
Children encounter a story, question, object, community problem, or new idea that sparks curiosity.
CREATE
Children build, draw, design, experiment, role-play, move, make, and imagine.
PRACTICE
Facilitators intentionally embed early literacy, numeracy, STEM, communication, fine-motor development, executive-function skills, collaboration, and social-emotional learning.
SHARE
Children talk about, demonstrate, celebrate, or showcase what they discovered and created.
What Might a Little Innovator Do?
🏗️ Build It
Design a neighborhood with blocks while exploring shapes, counting, spatial reasoning, community helpers, and teamwork.
🌱 Grow It
Plant a mini garden while exploring nature, measurement, sequencing, vocabulary, responsibility, and observation.
🛍️ Create It
Design a pretend store while practicing counting, communication, decision-making, creativity, and dramatic play.
🔬 Investigate It
Explore water, magnets, colors, ramps, light, sound, or movement through age-appropriate experiments.
🎨 Imagine It
Use art, music, movement, storytelling, and building materials to express ideas and develop creativity.
💡 Solve It
Work with other Little Innovators to solve simple challenges that encourage persistence, communication, and flexible thinking.
Developing the Whole Child
Our Innovation Labs intentionally support development across multiple areas.
Early Literacy & Language
Vocabulary • Storytelling • Listening • Speaking • Early Writing
Early Mathematics
Counting • Patterns • Shapes • Sorting • Measurement • Spatial Thinking
STEM & Discovery
Questioning • Building • Testing • Observing • Problem-Solving
Social-Emotional Development
Self-Regulation • Cooperation • Confidence • Empathy • Persistence
Creativity & Innovation
Imagination • Art • Design • Making • Experimentation
Executive Function
Attention • Planning • Working Memory • Decision-Making • Flexible Thinking
Executive-function and self-regulation skills help children manage attention, information, decisions, and tasks, making them important developmental targets during the early years.
Every Child Learns Differently.
We believe early learning should begin with a child's strengths, interests, curiosity, culture, and individual way of learning.
Our facilitators observe how children communicate, approach challenges, interact with others, persist, create, and respond to different learning supports.
Children can demonstrate what they know through talking, drawing, building, movement, play, creating, and doing.
The goal is not to label or diagnose children.
The goal is to understand them.
When families better understand how their children learn, they are better equipped to support their development and advocate for what they need.
Families Are Part of the Lab
Learning doesn't stop when the Innovation Lab ends.
Parents and caregivers are essential partners.
Families may participate through:
*Family Innovation Nights
*Parents and children create, explore, and learn together.
*Family Innovation Kits
*Simple activities and materials extend Innovation Lab learning into the home.
*Parent Learning Sessions
*Practical strategies for early literacy, numeracy, social-emotional development, independence, and school readiness.
*Developmental Conversations
*Families receive information about what their children are learning and strategies for continuing that development at home.
Community-Powered Early Learning
ILA believes families should be able to access high-quality learning experiences in the communities where they already live, learn, worship, and gather.
That's why the Early Childhood Innovation Lab™ is designed to operate through partnerships with:
Preschools • Childcare Centers • Schools • Churches • Community Centers • Libraries • Family Organizations
Instead of asking every family to come to us, we bring the Innovation Lab to families.
Ready for School. Ready to Explore. Ready to Lead.
For us, kindergarten readiness is bigger than knowing letters and numbers.
We want children entering school able to:
Ask questions.
Communicate ideas.
Work with others.
Try something new.
Persist when something is difficult.
Solve problems.
Express their creativity.
And believe that their ideas matter.
Research-based Texas early-childhood guidance similarly emphasizes play-based experiences and the development of linguistic, cognitive, social, physical, and emotional skills rather than relying solely on academics.
Every great innovator started as a curious child.
Let's protect that curiosity—and help it grow.
