Mixed Age Kindergarten
3-6 years
The Mixed-Age Kindergarten fosters a nurturing environment for purposeful and intelligent play. Here, children actively engage with the physical world and one another through play—this is the true work of childhood and forms the foundation for critical thinking, problem-solving, and social development. Within the Waldorf approach to Early Childhood Education, the value of play is a central guiding principle.
During playtime, children transform the classroom using simple, open-ended materials such as play stands, blocks, cloths, and dress-up items. Through imaginative and creative play, they explore and imitate the world around them. The activity of play naturally encourages communication, collaboration, and social interaction. As children play and connect, a sense of group consciousness begins to emerge, supporting the social and emotional growth of the whole group.
Outdoor play is equally vital and brimming with movement and discovery. Climbing, swinging, digging, hauling water, insect hunting, imaginative adventures, games, and plenty of running are part of the daily rhythm. Children are encouraged to explore and form a meaningful relationship with the natural world through active, hands-on experiences outdoors.​
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Limited to 15 children in each class
Ages 3 - 6
8:30 am - 12:30 pm Mornings Only
8:30 am - 3:00 pm Full Day
"One can ascend to a higher development only by bringing rhythm and repetition into one's life. Rhythm holds sway in all nature." - Rudolf Steiner
Rhythm of the Day
The curriculum of the early childhood program comes from the recognition that the young child, until around the age of seven, relates to the world primarily through his/her senses and body. The main ways learning takes place are through sensing (seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, and smelling) and doing. In our warm, home-like atmosphere, the children are guarded from sensory overload. As we travel through the year we honor the seasons by celebrating various festivals as a class and sometimes with the whole community, including parents.
Outside Play – Each morning begins outside. This not only helps the children to come together as a whole class and calm them from their sometimes long car rides to school, but it also gives them a chance to notice the effects that the seasons have on nature all around them. This is a time of wonder and observation. As the children begin to ask questions about things which they are observing, they are encouraged to wonder and imagine the possibilities of what they are experiencing (with all of their senses) and the teachers refrain from providing them with the scientific/intellectual answers to their questions. This leaves the children with an infinite realm of possibilities and keeps the children’s natural dream-like state intact.
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During outdoor play time, the children are given opportunities to dig in the sand and earth, climb, run, jump rope, swing and play on the play structure, look for bugs and blossoms and engage in imaginative play. The children are also able to help with gardening projects, water the plants, and sweep the sidewalks.
Inside Play -- Children engage in activities that develop eye-hand coordination, manual dexterity, and support hand dominance. This meaningful, practical work is an essential part of the early childhood day and includes tasks such as sewing, sweeping, chopping vegetables, cleaning, and washing dishes. Both boys and girls participate equally, gaining confidence and inner strength as they become skilled in purposeful work.
Teachers support creative play by providing simple, open-ended materials such as silks, cloths, play stands, stones, sticks, shells, dolls, capes, and wooden figures. Boards for building houses and stands for puppet plays are incorporated into the rich variety of movement and imaginative play. Children host tea parties in the play kitchen or build spaceships from wooden blocks, chairs, and cloths. This is also a time when they may work on handwork projects, progressing at their own pace and according to their abilities.
Creative free play allows time for self-directed exploration and discovery. As children build, transform, and rearrange their environment, they develop social competence, emotional resilience, and physical and cognitive skills, all of which form a strong foundation for future learning and growth.
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We invite you to visit our Pedagogy page to learn more about the vital importance of independent free play in childhood development!
Snack/Lunch – Before each meal, a reverent mood is gently woven into the room with a quiet blessing, inviting the children into a moment of stillness, love, and gratitude. This simple ritual helps them transition from the energy of play or work into a calm and centered space, where the gift of food is received with mindfulness and appreciation.
Mealtimes are not just about nourishment of the body—they are deeply meaningful social and developmental experiences. In the warm rhythm of shared meals, children learn to sit with intention, feet grounded on the floor, bodies upright and attentive. They are gently guided to practice good table manners: passing food kindly, using polite words, and waiting patiently for others.
Conversation at the table becomes a space for connection. Teachers model and foster thoughtful, respectful dialogue, helping children learn to listen as well as to share. These moments are opportunities for developing empathy, language skills, and a sense of community. Over time, mealtimes become a quiet schooling in grace, presence, and social harmony.
Story Time – Through the gentle rhythm of daily storytelling and puppet shows, children’s listening and memory skills blossom, their vocabulary expands, and they form a heartfelt connection to the human voice. As fairy tales, nature stories, and seasonal tales unfold, the children begin to weave their own relationship with the world around them.
Fairy tales awaken timeless human virtues—courage, kindness, honesty—bringing these qualities to life in ways the heart can understand. Nature stories deepen their experience of the changing seasons and the festivals that mark the year’s turning, grounding them in the rhythms of the Earth.
When a story is lovingly told again and again—often for a full week—it has time to sink in, to settle gently into the soul. In this quiet repetition, children learn to listen deeply, to think with clarity and imagination, and to see with wonder the many sides of a single tale. A seed is planted for clear, thoughtful minds and rich, inner lives.
Circle Time – Each day at circle time, the teacher gently leads the children on a joyful journey of movement, verse, and song. The theme of each circle reflects the unfolding seasons—honoring nature’s rhythm and inviting the children into its wonder. In autumn, they might gallop like ponies to the orchard to gather apples; in winter, they become woodcutters, trudging through snowy woods to chop firewood; and in spring, they awaken as blossoming flowers or flit like birds building their nests.
Each circle is lovingly repeated over several weeks, allowing the children to gradually absorb the verses, songs, and accompanying gestures. This repetition nurtures memory, enriches vocabulary, and deepens language experience—all while sparking the imagination. As they move and sing, the children form vivid inner pictures: golden apple orchards, glistening winter forests, and meadows alive with birdsong.
Circle time also nurtures the body. Through expansive movements in all three planes—up and down, front to back, side to side—children develop spatial awareness. The rhythmical recitation of verse, paired with graceful gestures and playful locomotor movement—running, skipping, hopping, leaping, sliding, and walking—supports both fine and gross motor development.
Thoughtfully woven into the circle are activities that support midline crossing, hand dominance, and sensory integration. These exercises gently awaken the proprioceptive system (self-movement, body awareness), the vestibular system (balance), the tactile system (touch), and the somatic system (mind-body connection).
This magical dance of singing, movement, rhyme, and verse is not merely play—it is the meaningful work of childhood.
​​​​​Artistic Work – These activities—watercolor painting, beeswax modeling, sewing, baking bread, chopping vegetables, and beeswax crayon drawing—invite the children into a world of beauty, rhythm, and purposeful work.
Watercolor painting and beeswax crayon drawing immerse the children in the language of color. Rather than approaching color through intellectual concepts, they experience it through feeling. Soft washes of watercolor and the gentle pressure of crayons allow them to form deep, emotional connections to the colors themselves—each hue awakening a different mood or inner gesture.
Modeling with beeswax is a particularly special experience. Unlike clay or play-dough, beeswax must be warmed slowly in the hands, calling upon the child's will and patience to make it soft and pliable. As the beeswax becomes more workable, it releases a gentle, natural scent—comforting and sweet—adding to the sensory richness of the activity. Working with beeswax not only strengthens fine motor skills, but also offers a color experience that is uniquely luminous and alive, reminiscent of stained glass in its transparency and glow.
Through these artistic and practical tasks, the children engage both heart and hand, forming quiet habits of care, perseverance, and joyful creativity.