In a place that has become like home with friends and teachers they have known from the start, kindergarten-aged children feel secure and confident in their third year at Whole Child; they are ready and eager to tackle new challenges, take on new roles, and embrace new experiences.
Growing Minds and Bodies
Around age five, children make a huge transition in their lives. They experience tremendous physical, social and cognitive growth; they develop higher levels of mental and physical sophistication and acquire new powers of reasoning and abstraction. They jubilantly celebrate that first loose tooth and their new height and strength.
An Ideal Environment
These kindergarten students now have a special opportunity as the oldest children in their mixed-age community. They have become leaders and role models and we witness new pride in work, empathy, cooperation, self-discipline, responsibility and independence. As they guide younger children, they nurture not only the younger students, but reinforce their own knowledge. In this kindergarten year they consolidate all that they absorbed when they were younger and use these “building blocks” for expanded intellectual and personal exploration. Realizing how much they have grown and how capable they are, they develop a strong sense of confidence in their own abilities.
Big Work!
As children experience rapid physical and cognitive growth, it is important to foster and push that growth with interesting and challenging work. The Montessori materials are carefully and thoughtfully designed to provide flexible, engaging and enriching work—the possibilities for learning are practically limitless! At their own pace, kindergarten students can dive into long division, sentence analysis, story-writing, and other big work.
Social Play, Projects and Excursions
Any child will tell you, Extended Day is fun! From exercising their new social awareness with group play in the Children’s Garden, to exploring their creativity and curiosity with special art and science projects, to venturing out beyond the school gates on exciting outings, the kindergarten children relish new experiences geared towards their growing minds and bodies.