About Us

Mission

Our mission is to inspire children, families and educators to connect more deeply with the world around them by providing innovative research-based programs and resource materials.

• We study how children develop visual-spatial skills and how parents and educators can best support this development.
• We create research-based materials (for educators and parents) to encourage children's visual-spatial development that ultimately enhances math, science, and literacy learning.
• We emphasize three key areas of learning: through hands-on work with three-dimensional building materials, through connections with nature, and through purposeful movement experiences.

Overview

The Dimensions Educational Research Foundation was formed in 1998 with the assembly of a cadre of nationally respected consultants to study how science, math and literacy learning can be enhanced by the addition of more visual-spatial activities into classrooms and homes.

For a number of years the Foundation has conducted and collected research on how children best develop visual-spatial skills and how teachers and families can optimally support this development. An interdisciplinary team of educators, scientists, architects, neuropsychologists, mathematicians, kinesthetic specialists, parent educators and qualitative and quantitative researchers from all over the United States works with the Dimensions Foundation on an on-going basis.

This represents the first time that research on visual-spatial skill development has been collected from direct observation of children and analyzed through the multiple perspectives of a broad range of experts. As a result of this research, a variety of resources for early childhood and elementary school educators and for families are being developed including workshops, DVD's and videotapes, activity guides and kits.