A Day in the Life of Sunflower Kindergarten

The Waldorf Kindergarten program provides the foundation for a life-long love of learning where our goal is to nurture a sense of wonder and curiosity in the young child, while encouraging reverence for the goodness of life.

Play is the heart of the Waldorf Kindergarten program and through the child’s own free, imaginative play, a broad range of cognitive, social, and linguistic skills are developed. Natural, simple materials such as pieces of tree branches, seashells, beeswax, and handcrafted puppets encourage children to create their own games and stories during play.

Every day begins with a short brisk walk around the block. The children talk, laugh, sing and arrive back at the Kindergarten with red rosy cheeks. Once inside the classroom, we gather together for a brief greeting time and a few lively songs and finger-plays. It is then time for our planned activity of the day: Mondays we paint, Tuesdays we model with beeswax, Wednesdays we make bread and soup, Thursdays we draw with our beeswax crayons, and Fridays we clean and tidy our room.

When the children have finished their daily planned activity, they are then free to play. The room is equipped with many beautiful natural toys and objects that are used for all kinds of imaginative play. In one corner the children might set up a restaurant, in another area several children might construct an airplane from wooden planks. There is no limit to the children’s imaginations. Through this play, the children act out the world around them.

After about 45 minutes of creative play-time, we all work together to make our room tidy again. We then wash our hands, sit down at the table, say a verse and eat our snack. The children participate in preparing our snack and setting our table. After snack we gather together again for a circle time of seasonal songs, verses, and rhythmic movement. We sing good morning to the birds and the bees, the flowers and the trees. The children form a relationship with the world of nature through this activity.

It is then time to go outside to play in the yard. The children dig in the sand, climb, swing, work in the garden, play games, and look for bugs. After about 45 minutes outside, we go inside again and gather together for story-time. A song is sung that takes us to the land of the fairytale. Fairytales are chosen for the season and to meet the needs of the group of children. After the tale is told we sing goodbye to our friends, and the children join their parents for the journey home.

In the loving and creative atmosphere of the kindergarten, young children acquire the confidence and discipline they will need for the challenging academic work of grade school.

**we are now offering full day kinder**