Our Goals & Philosophies
Our goal has always been to provide quality programs throughout the year in a warm, calm, and nurturing environment in which the imagination and creativity of the child will flourish. We create spaces in which the child can learn and grow through their imitation of the healthy experiences around them in daily life. This environment lays the foundation for the wonder of learning and teaches them the skills needed for their life’s work of discovery.
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We Are Play-Based
- At A Child’s Garden and Westside Preschool we believe that play is absolutely essential to the physical, mental, social, emotional, and cognitive development of children. We nurture and facilitate safe and loving environments where they can explore their boundaries and discover their needs, as well as the needs of all that is around them.
- We build the rhythm of our day around periods of indoor and outdoor unstructured play, as well as periods of structured activities. These include movement circle and games, artistic and sensory activities, home activities (such as cooking, baking, and cleaning), and stories, in addition to periods of rest and meals.
- Our indoor play spaces provide many opportunities for open-ended, creative play to encourage the imagination and facilitate community play in an age-appropriate way.
- We spend time outside every day (weather permitting) in our private playgrounds that offer space to climb, swing, dig, ride, and explore. A connection with nature is discovered and encouraged through nature walks, gardening, and helping to create a beautiful space for all creatures big and small.
- The Waldorf Teaching model is based on the books and lectures of Rudolf Steiner; we are not a full Waldorf certified program but draw inspiration from his beliefs on child development in body, soul, and spirit.
- We believe in nurturing the whole child and meeting them where they are in their journey of development and their individual needs.
- We create a warm, calm, home-like environment in our classrooms and promote reverence and respect towards the environment around us, from the natural world to the toys they play with. We nurture and facilitate kind and loving relationships with classmates, teachers, and family.
- Our school year goes from September of one year through August of the next year, please see our School Calendar for events and scheduled closure dates.
- We facilitate a connection to the seasons and the natural world around us through exploration, songs, games, art, sensory activities, and story.
- Our school celebrates seasonal festivals throughout the year that the children prepare for in their classrooms and parents are invited to participate in.
- Our approach to academics is to teach from the perspective of the whole child, meaning that we build the foundation for learning in imagery and movement first, before giving it as a thinking concept.
- Early learning such as colors, shapes, counting, and letter sounds are built into our younger curriculum through games, songs, poems, story, and movement in our circle, as well as throughout the rhythm of our days and weeks.
- In our older classes, number and letter forms are first introduced through stories or poetry, and then expanded upon through movement, games, and artistic activities before being conceptualized in their final form.
- Small motor control and hand/eye coordination, both essential skills for the tasks of reading, writing, and arithmetic, are built up throughout our curriculum with circle and finger games, painting, handwork, beeswax modeling, and structured play throughout our day.
- Memorization is encouraged through stories told every day over long periods of time that slowly build to the children acting them out, as well as learning songs to sing at our festivals throughout the year in our movement circles.
- We believe that the foundation for lifelong learning must be built slowly and intentionally, that the inspiration and concepts must come from within the child themselves, and not be dictated to them by us.