At Green Meadow Waldorf School, our Early Childhood programs provide warm, beautiful, home-like settings that nurture the developing senses of the young child, while also striving to meet the child’s evolving abilities and awakened sense of wonder. Age-appropriate social development is central to the Waldorf curriculum. The children are given ample opportunity to find their way into social interactions as they step out from the smaller and familiar circle of family.

Program Offerings

• Full-day and Half-day Nursery

  (For children ages 3 and 4) 
  
  Please read the overview below and our Activities page for a full description of our Nursery program. 
  Click here to learn about our application process and here for an application.

• Full-day and Half-day Kindergarten

  (Mixed age classes for children ages 4-6) 
  
  Please read the overview below and the Activities page for a full description of our Kindergarten program. Click here to learn about our application process and here for an application. 

• Saturday Kindergarten Class for Japanese children

  (Mixed age class for children ages 3-6)  
  An introduction to Waldorf education for Japanese families, this class builds foundational skills in the Japanese language during the Early Childhood period. Please click here to request information.

• Parent/Child Classes

  These once-a-week classes are open to parents/caregivers and their young children up to age thirty months.  Each teacher-facilitated or parent-led class provides an opportunity for parents to meet with one another and to interact with their children in a warm and nurturing setting.  Our spring '10 semester of Parent/Child classes begins in early February.   For further information about our Parent/Child program, please contact Admissions Coordinator Patricia Owens at powens@gmws.org or 845-356-2514 x302.
  
  

What is Waldorf Early Childhood Education?

While each of our Early Childhood classes is unique, they are united by the conscious care and devotion each teacher brings toward every child’s early childhood experience. Our teachers’ offerings are not based on a specific program or lesson plan, but are the result of every teacher’s recognition of each child’s developing individuality, along with his or her basic need for familiarity and predictability. The overall mood of the classroom is held by the individual teacher, who artfully balances experiences for individual exploration with the joy found by coming into a group. While striving to promote positive social behavior, our teachers also orchestrate a harmonious breathing between the lively activity of imaginative play, singing, circle games, cooking, baking and outdoor play with the inner experiences of listening to stories, drawing and painting. Such opportunities strengthen the young child’s physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual life, and provide a strong foundation for future academic success and creative thinking.

Imaginative Play

Playtime offers the children time to work together, to build structures, and to develop imaginative play themes. The teachers support the child’s development in leading play, as well as in following the play of others, and encourage their problem-solving skills. We understand that play for the young child represents work, and when they come into our kindergarten it is both their world and their place of work. Children easily interpret the natural materials in the classroom as a means for creating, and during playtime the Waldorf classroom is a place where a piece of curled cedar bark can become a spyglass in the hands of one child and an ancient scroll in the hands of another. It is a world where a pitted, dried-out log is a cash register in a shoe store stocked with stones of various sizes, until suddenly someone needs a baby, and the log is scooped up into the arms of a caring mother and the stone shoes become bowls of food.

The Classrooms

All of the classrooms are simple, beautiful and calming. The care and preparation for daily activities are an important aesthetic opportunity in which the children eagerly participate. Currently Green Meadow has five classrooms. Two kindergartens are located in the Kindergarten building, one kindergarten and one nursery class are located in the Lower School building, and one kindergarten is at a satellite location known as The Child’s Garden at  the Fellowship Community. Oak House, which adjoins the campus, provides a home-like setting for our parent and child classes. Each of the four kindergarten classes contains one teacher and fourteen children. The nursery class has one teacher, an assistant and twelve children.