Fiddlehead Forest School

maggie.fiddleheadforestschool@gmail.com
Maggie Downey-Owner/LifeWays Graduate

LifeWays Early Childhood Curriculum

LifeWays North America draws from the indications of Rudolf Steiner/Waldorf education and modern formulations such as The Irreducible Needs of Children by Brazelton and Greenspan, which emphasize nurturing the child’s sense of trust and well-being.

LifeWays® programs recognize that human relationship and activity are the essential tools for all foundational skills for life. Daily life experience is the “curriculum” through which the child experiences healthy life rhythms and routines.

At Fiddlehead Forest School, children in engage in the following LifeWays inspired approaches to learning:

• Domestic Arts— Children find joy in the practical and meaningful activities of daily life, laying a foundation for future academic skills, initiative and purpose.

• Nurturing Arts— Children are nourished with nourishing foods, daily outdoor time, and rest.

• Social Arts— Mixed-age groupings foster a secure relationship with the primary caregiver over time and provide the opportunity to be both a younger and older “sibling.”

• Creative Arts— Imaginative play is enriched by story telling, puppet shows, artistic activities, crafts, music and singing.

A variety of experiential and sensorial opportunities are offered according to age appropriateness:

• Movement and play – a planned and structured component of the early childhood program. It emphasizes child-initiated activities that allow and promote healthy musculoskeletal development by providing opportunities for unstructured, spontaneous movement in a protected environment. Traditional games and finger-plays are also an important part of the movement curriculum as they provide opportunities for the children to imitate healthy movement, develop preconception and increase both their small and large motor skills.

• Expanded outdoor exploration – Children need more than the “playground” experience. They need “wild places” as so aptly described in the book The Geography of Childhood by Nabhan and Trimble. Building forts, climbing trees and going on nature walks are valued experiences at LifeWays. The children go outside in all but the most inclement weather in order to help them become more robust and strengthen their bond with the environment in which they live. Plants, gardening, and animal life are part of the outdoor experience wherever possible.

• Pre-academic skills – The foundation for reading, math and sciences is found in practical life activity and the play of the children, which mimics it. “Studies show that four-, five-, and six-year-olds in heavily ‘academic’ classes tend to become less creative and more anxious—without gaining significant advantages over their peers. Youngsters in well-structured ‘play’-oriented schools develop more positive attitudes toward learning along with better ultimate skill development” (Jane Healy, Ph.D., Your Child’s Growing Mind).

LifeWays recognizes childhood as a valid and authentic time unto itself and not just a preparation for schooling. Here are some ways Fiddlehead Forest School fosters this time of early childhood:

1. Literacy – Foundation for lifelong literacy is fostered through storytelling and puppetry, through poetry, verse, and music on a daily basis. Also through the daily interactions of play and movement in a healthy, secure environment.

2. Rhythms – There is a daily and weekly rhythm that provides a familiar environment and support for the children as they move wholeheartedly into play and learning experiences.

3. Human Relationships – “Emotional learning comes first, and it happens through interactions. Curriculum comes after you have warm, encouraging relationships. It’s less effective without them.” – (Dr. T. Berry Brazelton). Emphasis is on loving human interaction with warm speech, live singing, verses, and stories rather than technology.

4. Celebrations - Ongoing festivals and celebrations honoring the seasons and traditional festivals of the year and the birthdays of each of the children and caregivers.

5. Early School Skill Building – Activities for the school age child are drawn from practical skills, handwork, arts, music, recitation, speech and language development, foundational science and mathematical skills and nature exploration. The richness of this developmentally-appropriate, play-based approach has been demonstrated in Waldorf preschools and kindergartens throughout the world.

Source: LifeWays North America

2023-2024 -Currently Full

• Ages 2 years through 6 years

• Monday-Thursday 8:30 am to 2:15 pm

• Our early childhood LifeWays program is focused on nurturing and protecting the young child’s sense of wonder and imagination. Play is the work of childhood and our environment is carefully prepared for the developmental needs of the young child. Through play, each child learns a broad range of social-emotional, cognitive, and linguistic skills.

  There is a daily and weekly rhythm that provides a familiar environment and support for the children as they move wholeheartedly into play and learning experiences. Our child care home is warm, inviting and intentionally filled with beautiful and natural elements including pieces of wood, seashells, beeswax for modeling, and handmade dolls and toys to encourage children to create, imagine and wonder.

  Children enrolled at Fiddlehead Forest School will experience days rich with crafts, storytelling, song, cooking, practical work, and outdoor experiences. 

• Our day includes free play inside and outside, healthy warm snacks and lunch, daily activities for older children who choose (drawing, painting etc), daily rest/nap along with puppet shows, singing and stories.

• Our program provides a warm and nurturing foundation for young children and allows unhurried time for exploration and nature-based learning. We create an inviting, carefully structured and intentional atmosphere in all of our classrooms. Vigorous, healthy play and sensory stimulation provide the activities needed for language development, dexterity, math skills, social skills and creative thinking. Circle time movements, along with indoor and outdoor play, strengthen each child’s sense of well-being, confidence, security and touch. This builds a healthy lifestyle and creates a solid foundation for the physical, social, emotional and cognitive skills that will be further developed in their ongoing education.
  

  Our program is carefully designed to respond to the developmental needs of young children through creative, play-based learning and outdoor education. Our teachers work closely with parents in a way that forms a bridge for the child between home and school from the earliest years. This not only builds a sense of community but also creates a foundation of security and trust.
  

  Our program encourages children to learn through play, purposeful work, and practical and artistic activities. Our children develop lifelong capacities for creative thinking, healthy foundational senses, self-confidence, and readiness and excitement for academic learning.
  

  All teachers work to establish a familiar daily rhythm that includes creative free play, a focus on domestic activities, and significant time spent outdoors.  Drawing, handwork, watercolor painting, beeswax modeling, woodwork, and puppetry all nurture the child’s imagination and preserve the innocence and innate wonder of early childhood.  As they care for the classroom, bake, prepare nutritious snacks, lead circle time activities, and tell stories, our teachers lead by example and the children learn naturally through healthy imitation.

  “The task of the kindergarten teacher is to adapt the practical activities of daily life so that they are suitable for the child’s imitation through play.  In kindergarten, the most important thing is to give the children the opportunity to directly imitate life itself.”

  – Rudolf Steiner, Founder of Waldorf Education