The first thing you notice at Perform to Learn preschool is the puppet theatre. The North Street school is all about self-expression and the arts.

But since September, in between the puppet shows and the dance, children have been learning more high-tech subjects, such as coding and physics.

It is all part of the school’s new science, technology, engineering and maths programme.

“We’re still performing arts based,” said owner McCartney Hart. “This just adds balance.”

Coding might sound heavy for a toddler, but the teacher insists it is a skill vital to the future.

“Coding is a huge part of what the world is doing right now,” she said. “It’s important we expose children to every aspect of life. The first seven years are vital to development.”

In case you imagine toddlers chained to computers, tapping out programming, don’t. The school’s tagline is “Put the fun in fundamentals”.

“You’re never too young to learn, it’s just in how you’re taught,” said head teacher Chandra Maybury. She uses coloured blocks rather than a keyboard to teach coding.

“We say to the children each block represents a letter,” said Ms Maybury. “If we put down two red blocks, one yellow and one blue, we get a word. It helps to reinforce their colours and numbers and teaches them a little bit of coding.”

The students had just finished a lesson about motion when Lifestyle visited.

“The children loved it,” said Ms Maybury. “I made a ramp and we talked about what would happen if I put this car on the ramp. I gave them an opportunity to use their minds. We talked about things that are fast. We talked about circular motion.”

She tries to keep things lively and basic, particularly with the younger children.

“I tell them to swing their arms back and forth,” she said. “I say, ‘Look at what you’re doing, that’s motion!’”

The hope is that the programme will spark their natural curiosity and love of learning.

There is already some evidence that it is working.

“One of my parents told me they filled up the bathtub and then came in and found their daughter throwing things into the bathtub,” said Ms Maybury. “She was throwing in shampoo bottles, soap, her shoes and her socks. She told her mother, ‘I wanted to see what would float and what would sink’.”

The scheme is part of Ms Hart’s push to keep up with changing times. “President Obama has really been pushing STEM programmes,” she said. “Researchers have found that a lot of these concepts are better absorbed if they are taught together. It is my desire for students to have the tools and resources they need to succeed.

“Learning was hard for me and I made the decision to live my life ensuring I could provide students a platform to learn regardless of how they are wired to learn.”

She is the first to admit not all the children are wired to be performers.

“We want to prepare them for whatever they’re going to do,” she said.

Her five-year-old son, Spencer, recently tested as gifted in maths. She credits the preschool’s programme.

“I had no idea until he took the test,” she said. “But he could count to 100 before he was three. We always had an amazing maths programme. We also had science. STEM just brings it all together and adds new things like technology.”

Technology can include lessons on an iPad, but sometimes it is as basic as learning how to use a pair of scissors.

The school started as Building Blocks Academy six years ago. It was renamed Perform to Learn this year.

She moved to Arizona two years ago and is hoping to replicate the formula there. She currently has two in the works, one in Scottsdale and one in Houston, Texas.