Dear Nursery Families,
I know your reenrollment forms are due on Friday, and you may have questions about what next year will look like. As you may or may not know, last year the Sunflower and Golden Forest classrooms became nursery kindergartens, with children as young as 3 and half to as old as 6. This was our faculty's response to a visit from Helle Heckmann in which she promulgated the value of moving toward mixed age groupings, family style groupings. We are still in the process of seeing what is the ideal way to bring Waldorf early childhood education to our community.
That being said, our ostensible plan is to continue next year as we have this year, with most or all of our current nursery children moving along to the 4 or 5 day kindergarten next year (both classes who have children who attend 4 or 5 days). Last year, we opened the potential that a child or children might stay in the nursery, but when all parents considered it, they wanted to keep their nursery children together with the peers they had developed a bond with in the Butterfly Classroom. We offer the same this year. While we expect that our current nursery students will move on, there may be reasons to consider a child or two staying (with due consideration to and attention to the social bonds that are solidifying in the spring). Please do contact me with questions or comments or concerns.
I will try to collect from colleagues or archives some words from them to describe how kindergarten is similar to and different from nursery. Last year they invited nursery parents with concerns to sign up for kindergarten office hours to talk with the teachers. A few of my families from last year did so, and I encourage you to do the same this year. Kim and Dyanne both have sign-up sheets outside their door for meeting times.
With warmth and light,
William Geoffrey Dolde
I know your reenrollment forms are due on Friday, and you may have questions about what next year will look like. As you may or may not know, last year the Sunflower and Golden Forest classrooms became nursery kindergartens, with children as young as 3 and half to as old as 6. This was our faculty's response to a visit from Helle Heckmann in which she promulgated the value of moving toward mixed age groupings, family style groupings. We are still in the process of seeing what is the ideal way to bring Waldorf early childhood education to our community.
That being said, our ostensible plan is to continue next year as we have this year, with most or all of our current nursery children moving along to the 4 or 5 day kindergarten next year (both classes who have children who attend 4 or 5 days). Last year, we opened the potential that a child or children might stay in the nursery, but when all parents considered it, they wanted to keep their nursery children together with the peers they had developed a bond with in the Butterfly Classroom. We offer the same this year. While we expect that our current nursery students will move on, there may be reasons to consider a child or two staying (with due consideration to and attention to the social bonds that are solidifying in the spring). Please do contact me with questions or comments or concerns.
I will try to collect from colleagues or archives some words from them to describe how kindergarten is similar to and different from nursery. Last year they invited nursery parents with concerns to sign up for kindergarten office hours to talk with the teachers. A few of my families from last year did so, and I encourage you to do the same this year. Kim and Dyanne both have sign-up sheets outside their door for meeting times.
With warmth and light,
William Geoffrey Dolde
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