Early Childhood Education
“We are fully human only while playing, and we play only when we are human in the truest sense of the word”
— Rudolf Steiner
Early Childhood Program
Micha-el School’s early childhood program is open to students who are 3.5 - 6 years old. In the kindergarten years, children learn primarily through their own need to be active and their uncanny ability to imitate all that surrounds them. The teacher brings rhythmic activities in an atmosphere of beauty, warmth and harmony to nourish students’ blossoming, creative thinking upon which all future abstract thoughts are built. Materials from nature, such as wood and stones, colored clothes and simple dolls provide stimulus for creative play which develops the imagination, concentration, coordination, language and a number of skills that will be gently called forth in the elementary years.
Children in the mixed-age kindergarten program follow this daily rhythm:
Circle Time
Free play
Snack preparation
Activities ~ painting, sewing, finger knitting, crafts, baking
Cleanup and snack
Story time
Outside playtime
Lunch