Our Objectives

• offering quality early childhood programs including day care, preschool and kindergarten
• providing community to support families with young children
• sharing information about child development and parenting
• nourishing the senses of young children
• supporting healthy physical development as a foundation for lifelong learning
• celebrating the rhythms of the year, the week, and the day
• balancing creative free play with teacher-directed activities
• developing the domestic arts as a life skill
• providing quality language experiences for development of deep literacy
• building relationships that make children feel secure in their surroundings
• caring for the physical bodies of the young children with great respect
• offering adult role models that are worthy of the young child’s imitation

Children’s needs can be met in healthy family life as well as in a child care center that incorporates fundamental practices found in the home

• A warm, homelike environment filled with beauty and order
• Emphasis placed on practical life skills such as building, gardening, cleaning, cooking, washing, repairing, and sewing, among other things.
• Movement/play curriculum emphasizing child-initiated activities that promote healthy musculoskeletal development, providing opportunities for unstructured, spontaneous movement in a safe environment.
• Traditional games and fingerplays provide opportunities for children to imitate healthy movement, develop proprioception and increase both large and small motor skills.
• Children go outside in all but the most inclement weather in a playground area that has been designed for young children. This helps them become robust and strengthens their bond with the environment in which they live.
• Emphasis is on loving human interaction with warm speech, live singing, verses, and stories rather than technology in a television and video-free environment.
• Child guidance is based on the L.O.V.E. approach to discipline which includes: listening, laughter, order, objectivity, versatility, vulnerability, energy and enthusiasm.
• Foundation for deep and lifelong literacy is fostered through storytelling and puppetry, individual laptime with a book, through poetry, verse and song on a daily basis and through the daily interactions of play and movement in a healthy, secure environment.
• Natural, unprocessed and organic (whenever possible) foods are provided and children are often involved in food preparation.
• Festivals and celebrations, honoring the various cultural backgrounds of the families as well as traditional seasonal festivals and birthday parties are offered.
• If a teacher speaks a native language other than English, children may learn simple songs and games in this language.
• Daily, weekly, monthly and yearly rhythms are followed so children grow secure in their world and engage in the direct participatory experience without concern about what will happen next.
• Simple verses that express appreciation for our food, our friends and nature foster gratitude, wonder and openness.