Walking into a West Navarre Intermediate School classroom last week meant ducking flying plush cupcakes and stepping over splayed out, half-finished mini mansions surrounded by students with pipe cleaners. The noise of a half-dozen hammers wielded by third-graders filled the halls. 

Children’s brains complete up to 90 percent of development in the first five years of life, according to research by the Rauch Foundation. Though the typical newborn brain is only a quarter of the size it will reach by adulthood, it will grow rapidly in those first years and develop trillions of synapse connections.