In our early childhood classes our youngest children are nurtured in a warm and loving home-like space. They also explore the beautiful natural environment of McLaren Park. Children feel protected and secure in the rhythm of predictable activities and loving interactions with adults.
Our early childhood program supports each family as they enter into the world of school. Typically, children spend 3-4 years in early childhood as we prepare them for the social, emotional and academic experiences of elementary school.
Our teachers work with our students to:
Our early childhood program supports each family as they enter into the world of school. Typically, children spend 3-4 years in early childhood as we prepare them for the social, emotional and academic experiences of elementary school.
Our teachers work with our students to:
- Engage their will through meaningful and practical life activities
- Integrate their sensory body through ample movement
- Develop reading readiness through story, song, and verse
- Stimulate creativity and fantasy through imaginative play
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Age RequirementsEarly Childhood
We offer two years of a mixed-age Preschool and separately, two years of a mixed-age Kindergarten. Preschool: 2.9 - 4.3 years old Children must be 2 years 9 months by September 1st (born before December 31) to join Preschool as a first year student. Kindergarten: 4.3 - 6.9 years old Children must be 4 years and 3 months by September 1st (born before December 31) to join Kindergarten as a first year student. |
Preschool Programs
Tumbleweed - 8:30am - 1:00pm, 3 Days a week, forest program - outdoors only
Dandelion & Blackberry - 8:30am - 1:00pm, 5 Days a week, indoor and outdoor days (including Farm and McLaren hikes)
Aftercare 1:00pm - 5:30pm, limited availability
Dandelion & Blackberry - 8:30am - 1:00pm, 5 Days a week, indoor and outdoor days (including Farm and McLaren hikes)
Aftercare 1:00pm - 5:30pm, limited availability
The Preschool Program is an indoor and outdoor offering serving children between the ages of 2 years 9 months and 4 1/2 years old. Each day of the week is defined by its specific activity, be it bread-making, soup-making, or painting. On arrival, the children feel secure and confident in knowing what is in store for them and how the rhythm of the day will unfold.
Tumbleweed offers a forest experience 3-days a week in McLaren Park.
The Dandelion and Blackberry programs offer outdoor days at the school Farm in Mission Terrace and hiking in McLaren Park. Three days are based at the preschool home operating out of 1433 Wayland Street. Drop-off and pick-up alternate on a set schedule at the Wayland house, Farm, and McLaren Park.
Tumbleweed offers a forest experience 3-days a week in McLaren Park.
The Dandelion and Blackberry programs offer outdoor days at the school Farm in Mission Terrace and hiking in McLaren Park. Three days are based at the preschool home operating out of 1433 Wayland Street. Drop-off and pick-up alternate on a set schedule at the Wayland house, Farm, and McLaren Park.
A typical day...
Children arrive between 8:30am and 9:00am. Once everyone is present, we gather in a circle to greet the day with seasonal songs, poems, finger games and movement. We then transition into a light morning snack, and move right into our activity of the day; watercolor painting, bread baking, vegetable chopping, farm work or a hike in the park. Once our activity is completed, including clean-up, the children are welcomed into free play, guided by the teachers if needed. Free play ends with a song of tidying and gathering, and we all work together to bring our space back to order if indoors. We then have a short rest while the teachers sing lullabies to help children relax and come to quiet. A rooster crow tells us it is time to get up and prepare to eat our lunch. Before each meal, a blessing is sung to instill a sense of gratitude for earth. Snack and lunch are provided by the program on indoor days based at the preschool home. As the day comes to an end, we gather for a story and puppet show by one of the teachers. Stories shared are simple nature tales, as well as various folktales and fairy tales from around the world, age-appropriate for the preschooler.
This strong experience of rhythm, warmth, and care, for self and others, in the very early years, sets the children up for the next big adventure into Golden Bridges Kindergarten! We have three preschool groups: Tumbleweed, Dandelion, and Blackberry. Each class is taught by experienced teachers with specific Waldorf Early Childhood training and a maximum 1:6 teacher to student ratio. KindergartenMorning Glory & Rainbow Kindergarten - 8:30am - 1:00pm, aftercare until 5:30pm
We offer two Kindergarten classes that meet the children of San Francisco in a unique and exciting way. The days rotate between a set schedule of indoor days, farm days, and hike days.
By design, the indoor kindergarten space is a home-like, secure, and loving place with a predictable rhythm throughout the day, season, and school year. We offer two years of a mixed-age kindergarten, welcoming younger children’s first venture into school, and preparing older kindergartners for first grade. Soft colors, fresh flowers, the beauty of nature, and natural toys fill the classroom. The kindergarten gently nurtures the development of imagination, verbal capacities, sequencing, sensory integration, memory, social skills, and motor skills that are essential as the foundation for later learning and academic excellence. This is all achieved in a supportive atmosphere free from formal academics. We have two kindergartens: Morning Glory and Rainbow. Each class is co-taught by two experienced teachers with specific Waldorf Early Childhood training. A typical day...
Indoor days are structured with the rhythm of circle time or morning greeting,
activities such as painting, baking, sewing, drawing and seasonal food projects and crafts. We honor free play with knowledge of the great benefits of child-led play where their imaginations are nurtured and encouraged to expand. Toys are made from wood and natural fabrics, and the children are encouraged to stretch the flexibility of their minds by having objects become many different things. Each class spends days hiking in McLaren Park and at our school Farm. We joyfully engage our bodies with weeding, harvesting vegetables and herbs for soup, hauling big logs for structures and play. This is also where we chop vegetables for farm soup, eaten with our homemade bread. There is a deep experience of the seasons when the children get long stretches of time on the land; they see what it is like for the land to sleep in Winter, to bud in Spring and to bring forth its great bounty in Summer and Fall. Each day ends with an oral storytelling experience, told by their teacher, and often accompanied by a puppet show. The stories come from far and wide and are often therapeutic tales, created by the teachers themselves. This early language development of taking in an oral story serves as the stepping stones for learning how to read and write in the grades. Stories foster memory skills and allow the children to develop and live into the rich imagery of their own mental pictures. 
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Foundations for
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Kindergarten Curriculum
Our curriculum meets the developmental needs of each child and cultivates a joyous and learning-intensive childhood. The following areas of focus prepare children for all that the grades curriculum will bring, socially and academically. The teachers provide regular repetition and rhythmic, creative elements in the daily kindergarten routine, as well as regular attention to seasonal changes highlighted with festivals.
Development of the Physical Body: Movement, Senses and Perception
The children engage in varied physical movement including gross motor games, walks, climbing, jumping rope, and farming. Fine motor movements with finger games and handwork (such as sewing or embroidery), and domestic arts (the practical work of caring for the environment around us), are woven into the daily rhythm. Our work supports healthy sensory integration, especially the proprioceptive and vestibular systems (including strong posture and balance).
Children first discover and explore the physical world with their senses and create simple, perceptible connections. We nurture the human senses by creating harmonious rooms with soothing blends of colors and materials, and by utilizing healthy, organic foods and natural materials.
Practical and Domestic Arts
Activities engaging in the practical work of caring for the environment around us hone both fine and gross motor skills, as well as engage the child with natural materials from the world. Domestic arts are an opportunity for the child to engage their senses, as well develop responsibility and care for the space and its objects or tools.
Speech and Language Arts (Pre-Literacy)
With speech we can express our feelings, give names to all things in the world, and enter into discussions with one another. Children learn to speak in a language rich environment. Our teachers nurture individual personal relationships between those speaking and those listening. When a child perceives warmth of soul and language from adults, the child is supported to develop strong, clear speech.
In our classes, circle time, songs, poetry, imaginative speech, vocabulary-rich stories, verses, finger games, and rhymes carry our day. The speech of our teachers is loving, clear, imaginative, and age appropriate. Daily storytelling and fairytales lay a foundation for pre-reading skills.Young children picture their thinking as opposed to engaging in abstract thinking.
Math and Science
We build foundations with sequencing, order and processing of activities such as setting the table, tying shoes, washing, then drying dishes. The children learn through creating their own puppet shows, handwork involves counting and measuring through sewing, weaving or processing sheep’s wool. Experiencing order and process, cause and effect, and observation of events are basic principles of science and math.
Bread baking, painting, farming work, and free play with mud and water all engage the child in an organic way in natural sciences. Playing outdoors and observing the change of seasons provides constant scientific exploration. We allow the children to experience these artistic and practical activities with a sense of awe and wonder, which keeps curiosity alive.
Social and Emotional Intelligence + Responsibility
The children learn that there are rules as well as a structure-creating rhythm to the day and week that lead to single children or groups taking on certain tasks (such as tidying up or setting the table). We provide rules, rituals, clarity, and truthfulness in our daily interactions. The children are supported to engage with each other within mixed-age groups. They are responsible for tasks such as rinsing the dishes, tidying the room, watering the plants, and we practice conflict resolution when opportunities arise.
Ample research that shows the ways in which free play aids children in a variety of decision-making, processing, and executive functioning skills. Children learn how to resolve conflict, have flexibility in thinking and use their imaginative capacities with our open ended toys. Dramatic plays built from the oral stories allow the children to process the imagination and characters through their own bodies and with others.
Development of the Physical Body: Movement, Senses and Perception
The children engage in varied physical movement including gross motor games, walks, climbing, jumping rope, and farming. Fine motor movements with finger games and handwork (such as sewing or embroidery), and domestic arts (the practical work of caring for the environment around us), are woven into the daily rhythm. Our work supports healthy sensory integration, especially the proprioceptive and vestibular systems (including strong posture and balance).
Children first discover and explore the physical world with their senses and create simple, perceptible connections. We nurture the human senses by creating harmonious rooms with soothing blends of colors and materials, and by utilizing healthy, organic foods and natural materials.
Practical and Domestic Arts
Activities engaging in the practical work of caring for the environment around us hone both fine and gross motor skills, as well as engage the child with natural materials from the world. Domestic arts are an opportunity for the child to engage their senses, as well develop responsibility and care for the space and its objects or tools.
Speech and Language Arts (Pre-Literacy)
With speech we can express our feelings, give names to all things in the world, and enter into discussions with one another. Children learn to speak in a language rich environment. Our teachers nurture individual personal relationships between those speaking and those listening. When a child perceives warmth of soul and language from adults, the child is supported to develop strong, clear speech.
In our classes, circle time, songs, poetry, imaginative speech, vocabulary-rich stories, verses, finger games, and rhymes carry our day. The speech of our teachers is loving, clear, imaginative, and age appropriate. Daily storytelling and fairytales lay a foundation for pre-reading skills.Young children picture their thinking as opposed to engaging in abstract thinking.
Math and Science
We build foundations with sequencing, order and processing of activities such as setting the table, tying shoes, washing, then drying dishes. The children learn through creating their own puppet shows, handwork involves counting and measuring through sewing, weaving or processing sheep’s wool. Experiencing order and process, cause and effect, and observation of events are basic principles of science and math.
Bread baking, painting, farming work, and free play with mud and water all engage the child in an organic way in natural sciences. Playing outdoors and observing the change of seasons provides constant scientific exploration. We allow the children to experience these artistic and practical activities with a sense of awe and wonder, which keeps curiosity alive.
Social and Emotional Intelligence + Responsibility
The children learn that there are rules as well as a structure-creating rhythm to the day and week that lead to single children or groups taking on certain tasks (such as tidying up or setting the table). We provide rules, rituals, clarity, and truthfulness in our daily interactions. The children are supported to engage with each other within mixed-age groups. They are responsible for tasks such as rinsing the dishes, tidying the room, watering the plants, and we practice conflict resolution when opportunities arise.
Ample research that shows the ways in which free play aids children in a variety of decision-making, processing, and executive functioning skills. Children learn how to resolve conflict, have flexibility in thinking and use their imaginative capacities with our open ended toys. Dramatic plays built from the oral stories allow the children to process the imagination and characters through their own bodies and with others.
More about our approach... |
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"Becoming" is the third film in a series of short films produced on the occasion of the centenary of Waldorf Education under the direction of the award-winning Californian documentary filmmaker Paul Zehrer, and which provide an insight into the inclusive diversity of Waldorf Education under the most diverse cultural, social, religious and economic conditions around the globe.
No age has a deeper impact on the whole of life than the first years of childhood. "During those first seven years, children develop their bodily foundation for life. They explore and experience the world with their senses and through meeting the other. These early encounters in life have a deep influence and long lasting effect on the making of their own being,” says Clara Aerts, coordinating member of IASWECE and co-producer of the film, which was shot in the USA, Israel, Japan, India, South Africa, Guatemala, the Czech Republic, Switzerland and Germany. "The experiences that we make possible - or withhold - for our children at this age form the most elementary basis for their further lives and thus ultimately for the future of humanity.” |
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"Come forth into the light of things. Let nature be your teacher."