Kinderforest
Our Preschool and Kindergarten Breath Together Throughout the Day
Discover Our Unique Waldorf Preschool and Kindergarten Experience
At our Waldorf-inspired preschool and kindergarten, we embrace a dynamic daily rhythm that beautifully balances togetherness and individual growth.
Mornings: Preschoolers and Kindergarteners unite for joyful play and creative crafts, fostering a sense of community.
Circle Time: They then part for age-appropriate circle activities, nurturing their distinct needs and development.
Lunch and Snack: Midmorning brings everyone back together for a nourishing meal, strengthening bonds.
Storytime: Once again, they temporarily separate for captivating story sessions, each group engaging in stories tailored to their age.
Play and Snack: Reuniting, they enjoy more playtime and another satisfying snack, fostering camaraderie.
Farewells and Workshops: As the day draws to a close, preschoolers bid their goodbyes while Kindergarteners delve into enriching workshops for an additional hour of growth and exploration.
Our unique daily rhythm respects each child's developmental stage, nurturing their sense of self and community.
Heart song Kinderforest grows out of a love for children and a love for the natural world.
Childhood is a magical time. From birth to age seven, young children learn in very specific and dream-like ways. Rhythm, repetition and imitation are their main functions of learning. Small children deeply experience the impulses they receive from the world around them. They then take this information and embody it through play. As adults in their sphere, our job is to provide nurturing spaces, a strong daily rhythm and modeling of adult daily activities and behavior.
Children thrive in relationship to the natural world. Thus, Heartsong’s kinder programs center around a farm, garden and forest. Indoor spaces include a green house. Year around the children will spend half of their preschool time in the greenhouse and the other half outside playing. The greenhouse is a warm protected space with a strong connection to the elements including an earthen floor, natural light and plants growing year around.
Indoor and outdoor play are the foundation of our program. Indoor play includes dolls made with cotton and wool and play items made of wood, natural fibers such as cotton, silk and wool, seeds, nuts, shells and other found objects. Additionally, we have some kitchen items that are made of metal. All play items are free-form so that imagination can blossom. Outdoor play takes place in a garden space, a forest space, an open field and a greenhouse. Mud play is encouraged. Expect that their outer layers will be dirty and/or wet depending on the season. Through this play, children are building social skills, problem solving, counting, sharing, building small and gross motor skills and more.
Story is another integral part of our program. We tell animal stories, nature stories and simple fairy tales from around the world. These stories include archetypal characters that subtly convey messages on morality, goodness, and the deep truths of life. Story is also used in a curative way to help process and meet challenging moments that may come up for our class. Story meets the children in the dream-like state they naturally reside and confirms the goodness of the world around them. Plays and puppet shows are often incorporated into our story telling.
Song is a part of our daily rhythm. Each day starts with songs for the day, for the season and sometimes just for fun. We also use song and music to alert children to transitions in activity and before shared meal time, story time and after play time. Song gently reminds children of what happens next in our daily rhythm.
Shared Mealtime is a favorite part of a Waldorf inspired preschool. Children will sit together at a table with their teachers and share lunch. This time is begun with washing hands, lighting a candle and singing a song. It is a beautiful time of the day in which the children rest and are nourished physically together. [i have left this here as it is our ideal. Unfortunately, during COVID, we are asking families to pack their own lunch and snack. We still light the candles and sing the songs]
Art We do watercolor painting with a wet paper method once a week (weather depending). We also take time to play with molding wax and draw with crayons. These creations are made with high quality paints, papers, crayons and waxes. Additional we save one or more days a week for nature craft projects with objects found on the farm. Not all art comes home as much of it is ephemeral and returns back to the earth here.