Sophia's Hearth
Programs for Early Childhood Families and Teachers
"discovering the wisdom of childhood"
Childcare Details
Ours is a continuous full day program where the children’s day is uninterrupted by changes from one group to another. An atmosphere of calm, engaged activity lives throughout our building.
What is Waldorf early childhood education all about?
Waldorf education is timeless. It springs from insight and interest in the whole child: the child as a wise, always growing and changing, self directed human spiritual being. Waldorf education recognizes the child as someone with a unique, innate, inner core of identity. Even in infancy, Waldorf education recognizes this unique individual who is developing step by step.
Our programs for infants and toddlers support these changes throughout childhood by protecting the children, by nurturing them through a balanced daily rhythm filled with joy.
The teacher strives to bring respect for the dignity of this journey of the child and her family. Each developmental stage is recognized, honored, and addressed through our curriculum and environment. Waldorf education not only recognizes that children learn best through imitation – especially of the adults around them - in the early childhood years, but puts this into daily practice.
Our teachers are especially qualified to support your family and care for your child. As a teacher education center, your family has a special advantage! Our teachers are always studying child development, curriculum, and many other themes that strengthen their work with your child. They each participate in our specialized teacher education program, ‘The Child and Family in the First Three Years’. Click here to read about their backgrounds and preparation to care for your child.
Time in the outdoors
We wish for every child to develop a life long love for and comfort in the out of doors - with joy and without fear. At Sophia's Hearth, your child will develop ‘Earth Literacy’. She will learn to know the language and meaning of the natural world, the Earth and the greater cosmos. Her teachers’ stories, songs, and verses, crafts and outdoor seasonal work build this for her.
We focus on these values and approaches, recognizing that:
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Human relationships – teacher to child, child to child - are the foundation of a healthy social capacities for all of life, beginning in infancy
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Play, both with other children and by the child alone, well guided by the teacher, is the foundation for learning in early childhood
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Reducing the intensity of children’s lives here during their day, through a rhythm carefully guided by the teachers, leads to the greatest openness to learning
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Abundant time in the natural world strengthens social skills of conflict resolution, builds capacities for problem solving, planning, and building imaginative capacities. The foundation for physical development and health - coordination, strength, motor planning and skills, judgment- all unfold more easily and successfully outdoors. Innovation that integrates creative and cognitive aspects of children’s thinking, problem solving all occur naturally in the outdoors.
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Waldorf early childhood education offers profound resources for educating young children. In addition, our infant care is guided by the 20th century experience and research of Hungarian pediatrician Emmi Pikler.
