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Great River School's curriculum offers a rigorous academic program with visual arts, movement, vocal and instrumental music, traditional crafts, and daily French instruction. We approach education by integrating the arts into all aspects of the curriculum including the humanities, math and sciences. A class teacher, who ideally accompanies the children through all eight grades teaches the core curriculum while subject specialists teach music, french, handwork and woodworking. In the grades, we offer a two hour morning lesson when core academics are taught. Topics are taught in three - four week blocks, allowing for in-depth study and integration.

Our small classes (with a 6 to 1 teacher ratio) create an environment of acceptance that allow our dedicated faculty to recognize the special gifts of each child. Great River School students take a deep investment in their learning as they create their own subject based main lesson books with compositions, observations, illustrations and diagrams of their studies. Because our students spend so much learning time outdoors, they develop a living relationship with the both land and their community, where the joys and traditions of play, work, festivals and song unfold. For more information on why a Waldorf inspired education may be right for your child, check out the recent article in the New York Times on Waldorf education or call us to schedule a tour. Click here for the article.

Registration for Ms. Flamenco's Kindergarten Class Begins: January 23, 2012

We offer a 3 or 5 day per week Waldorf kindergarten class, half or full days.

Activities: The kindergarten week includes arts and crafts, puppetry, movement, woodworking, painting, story time, cooking, bread baking, singing games, outdoor physical play, and the learning of social courtesies. With exquisite attention to language, the Ms. Flamenco tells fairytales and stories while children drink in the images and thereby strengthen their innate human capacities for forming inner pictures. This capacity, when properly nourished, becomes the basis for language arts and future critical thinking skills.

Routine: Regular rhythms – alternating vigorous activities with quieter ones – guide the structure of each day. During nature walks and outdoor play times, children experience a sense of wonder and a love of nature.

Festivals: Celebrating seasonal festivals emphasizes the greater rhythm of the year. These festivals not only remind children of the cycles of the year, but also hold them in the larger Great River School family.

Snacks and Lunch: The children help the teacher prepare a healthy, wholesome, organic mid-morning snack of homemade whole grain bread, which they then enjoy as a class. The kindergarten children bring lunch from home and are dismissed at 12:30 pm unless they participate in our Afternoon program.

A Typical Daily Kindergarten Routine:

8:15-8:45 am gather in the large kindergarten play yard

8:45 am Morning circle activities gross motor skills and sensory integration

9: 00 am structured indoor free play

9:50 am clean up / quiet time

10:30 am snack

10:45 am outdoor play

11:30 am Story time – language arts

12:00 am Lunch

12:30 pm Dismissal

12:45 Afternoon Kindergarten to 3:00 pm with our French Waldorf Teacher Madame d'Unienville.

Why should you choose Great River School for your child?