Kindergarten Chickadees: March 10-14, 2025

Mar 14

Osiyo, Chickadee Families,

Last week, the Chickadee classroom was filled with new building projects. The stick fort and blanket fort were expanded, reinforced, and played in throughout the week. One fort is often used for quiet play, and the other is used as a base or gathering spot for active chasing or strategic games. Monday’s rain brought a small stream flowing just outside our classroom boundary; in the afternoon, some students gathered pieces of bamboo and lightweight wood and experimented with making different types of boats. The children used hand rakes to clear away rocks, leaves, and mud in the stream and attempted to float their boats along a section of our class boundary. After the stream dried up, the Chickadees used these new pieces of wood and bamboo in their building and imaginative play. The children have also been interested in constructing Kennesaw Mountain from different materials, such as sand in the sandbox and leaves raked into a pile.

One of our core beliefs and goals as a school and early childhood program is protecting childhood and the innocence of children. In Waldorf education, teachers and families work together to ensure for the children a sense that the world is good. The students experience this in school through teachers’ use of beautiful, pictorial language and learning and playing in an environment that is free from language meant for adults or older children. While swearing is not allowed at school by anyone, and “potty words” are discouraged in class, the children are given other loving boundaries as well. For example, students learn that the kindest thing you can call someone in class is their name, and they are asked to call people only by their names and not by slang words they might hear from older children, such as “bro” and “dude”. Families can help at home by limiting their child’s exposure to language that is not intended for young children and by having discussions with them when they do hear it. One especially impactful way families can protect their child’s sense of a good and safe world is by not listening to the news or discussing world events with or around their children. The experience of the world as a good and safe place is the best gift we can give young children, and a beautiful foundation for giving them the desire to love and protect it and each other.

Announcements and Reminders for Chickadee Kindergarten: