Early Childhood

The Kindergarten
Our early childhood program strives to honor that dream-like consciousnessunique to the young child. In their capacity for fantasy, their need for play, their desire to imitate the adults around them, their love of stories and reverence for nature, the children are telling us about themselves, and our kindergarten strives to meet them right where they are.

At the heart of childhood is play, and play is at the heart of the Bay School’s kindergarten day. For over an hour each morning our kindergarteners can be observed wearing capes and crowns and play-acting in a world of their making.  The power of fantasy allows the children to see endless possibilities in nature’s simplest objects such as logs, pebbles, shells, simple cloths. For just that reason our toy baskets contain nothing more. Day after day these simple objects are given new life by the children’s imaginations.  Through creative play, the children make sense of the world.  It is their work.

The Kindergarten is a combined program for pre-K and Kindergarten (ages four to six), with two class teachers. An optional afternoon program is also offered.

Morning Garden - The Bay School Program for Parents and Toddlers
Through work and play together, Morning Garden will create a community of parents and their small children. The program is open to parents, toddlers and preschool age children. The children will play with the security of a parent nearby. Parents will learn about child development, parenting, and early childhood education. They will have an opportunity to interact with other adults, sharing snack preparation and clean-up; making simple seasonal crafts; and joining together in a circle time of movement, song, rhyme and story, or puppet play. We will end each morning’s session in appreciation of nature through some outdoor time.

Morning Garden sessions run for ten weeks several times per year. The class goes from 9:15 am to 11:15 am one day per week.

THE GRADES

Circle, Main Lesson, and the Block System
A Bay School day begins with class teachers leadingtheir children in singing, reciting poetry, playing recorder, or other activities as part of opening circle. The main lesson itself, the “main meal” of the day is a one-and-one-half-hour period allowing for broad exploration of a subject through the arts and experiential activities. Through this creative process the children connect with the subject and make it their own. In content and form, main lesson provides essential nourishment for the growing child. After a few weeks the teacher introduces a new subject, marking the beginning of a new main lesson block. The school year is divided into seven to nine blocks, each dedicated to the study of one subject, carefully and beautifully recorded in their own main lesson book.

The Specialty Classes Program
From first through eighth grade, Bay School students benefit from a well thought-out and developmentally sequenced program in the areas of the arts, music, movement, and foreign language. The value accorded these Specialty Classes within the curriculum is a hallmark of the school’s Waldorf philosophy of education. Along with the main lesson studies, they form the core of the Bay School program.

Classes are taught by Specialty Teachers, experts in their respective fields. Generally, students have two periods of instruction in each specialty subject per week. Each Specialty subject has its own Grade 1-8 scope and sequence, with both content and method of instruction changing over time to meet the children as they go up through the grades. The interweaving of these Specialty Classes with the academic subjects through the day and week brings balance and a healthy rhythm to the children’s day.  In an education that seeks to engage not just the children’s minds but hearts and hands as well, the Specials curricula play a vital role in ensuring that the whole being of the child is nurtured.  

Specialty Teachers join Class Teachers in forming a team around each child, supporting and complementing each other’s work to ensure the healthy development and full unfolding of each child’s capacities as a human being.