Early Childhood and Kindergarten
The Importance of Stories and Morning Circle
An Early Childhood Parent Toddler and Kindergarten program is a play-based, mixed-age half-day program that is a gentle transition from home life to school life. The adults are the students in an Early Childhood Parent Toddler class. The Teachers gently lead the child across the bridge from home to school and lay a strong, healthy foundation for the academic program that begins in First Grade.
A Parent Toddler or Kindergarten classroom has a homelike environment, with lots of singing, seasonal activities, painting, puppetry, and storytelling. Free play is encouraged with simple and natural toys that draw out the child’s imagination. Waldorf Steiner education allows a child space and the time to develop the body, imagination, and will, in a safe and homey setting. A child imitates all he or she sees, and the Teacher strives to create an environment that presents the good and the beautiful. The Teacher cultivates reverence for nature and for caring relationships and good habits, that lay a solid foundation for lifelong learning, personal development, fruitful relationships with others, and engagement with the world.
This Early Childhood and Kindergarten program is based upon simple, yet profound concepts of imitation, repetition, and purposeful work. Due to its unique three-year format, a Waldorf Steiner Kindergarten is appropriate for a mixed age group of children from 3 to 6 years old. A child in this program will gradually be accustomed to working with a group, listen to stories, interact with the Teachers, and follow a daily routine, while at the same time be aided in his or her development as an individual through creative play, healthy movement indoors and out, practical life skills, and many artistic opportunities.
A typical day has free play and a morning circle, where all children do movement, simple drama, fingerplays, seasonal songs, rhymes and verses, and purposeful activities such as baking, painting, arts, and crafts. A Kindergarten class also has nature walks, farm visits, boating, and kite flying days with Parents and Guardians. Home visits, festivals, crafts workshops for adults, and parent education talks are a wider part of school life.
Beauty Developing Capacities for Feeling and Imaginative Thinking
