Introduction:
Steiner schools are open to all students irrespective of culture or religion. Waldorf-Steiner schools give equal place to motor development and to the development of the senses and the intellect. These human qualities are cultivated according to the age and developmental stage of the children and help build a free and autonomous personality. The small child is a being « under construction”.
Given over completely to the world that surrounds him, he soaks it up through IMITATION. It is this first activity which allows him to shape his body and to gain access to the process of humanisation. It is therefore of the utmost importance to surround the child with an environment of the highest quality because, all of his senses are open and impressions enter freely, shaping him profoundly.
Our kindergarten strives to be a warm and protective place. Inside of the school, one finds noble materials and walls painted in delicate pastels.
The child develops by learning from life experience and free play. Through contact with his friends, he has his first social experiences. The teacher determines the time frame and the boundaries, thus allowing the child to find his points of reference.
Bilingualism:
Our nursery school proposes the practice of two languages to the children from 3 to 6 years old.
In the morning, the class takes place in French with a qualified teacher trained to the pedagogy Steiner Waldorf of the early childhood.
Afternoons, an professor of English – also qualified and trained to the pedagogy Steiner of the early childhood teaches in English.
A raising awareness, -getting their feet wet- is proposed to the children who can acquire the oral practice of the language:
by imitation which is children’s best opportunity of learning
And by the repetition, which delights them and by whom they strongly stimulate their will and a taste for making an effort.
The plasticity of speech organs, thanks to which the tender child acquired easily his mother tongue, allow them to adapt themselves to the so specific pronunciations of these two families of European languages: Latin and Germanic, such as English.
The child learns to speak by hearing.
In practice:
All the exchanges, collective or individual, take place in the spoken language by the teacher.
The games of fingers, poems, rounds and songs repeated every day, make children sensitive to tones, music of the language, at its pace, while bringing them, by an alive approach, the structures of the sentences and the syntax.
No grammatical teaching is consciously already practiced, but the teacher aims at feeding the child of the fundamental structures of the tongue.
Specific games develop their vocabulary; the tales and stories adapted in puppets once a week, allow the children to better understand the “full of imagery” narratives or those illustrated in music.
Free Play:
The Waldorf-Steiner teaching method is part of a historical and scientific movement which recognises the free play of children as being of capital importance for their development and for their future life as adults.
« Free Play » is thus considered to be the child’s most serious « Work. » The purest activity can already be observed in the baby, as he lifts his head and his trunk and then walks. This irresistible need for action is the first driving force for play.
The child transposes what he sees as an activity without precise meaning into a simple joy in the act of doing and re-doing . Between the ages of 3 and 5, the child will add imagination to the need for action. This imaginative force allows the child to express the rich tonalities of his emotional life with the help of objects in his environment. In play, the child exhibits one of his essential powers : Creative Imagination.
The necessity to be creative is not a luxury /indulgence, an artistic specificity or an originality on the margins of life, but rather it is one of the most important human faculties, even in adulthood. The need to be creative merits being taken seriously and cultivated.
We need it in daily life: a man without imagination would be in a rut which is dug by others. He would not be free. Imagination gives us the strength to go beyond what is and to bind ourselves, through our own activity to what we are to become. It opens the future. It adapts to a present reality, but brings proposals for changing what it is all about.
They absorb his creativity in their cogs and circuits. It is no longer the toy that does what the child asks of it, but on the contrary, the child who submits to that which the toy device demands. » Raymond Burlotte – High School Science teacher and trainer at the R. Steiner seminar in Paris—extract from the article « Play and Creation. » Between the ages of 5 and 7, the child develops the capacity to play while having a precise goal because, at that point, memorisation faculties appear which are free of all comprehension and concentration supports.
Water games:
Music:
The child experiments with different tones and sonorities and then plays with them. Then he discovers through free improvisation, the resonant space of other children. Rhythmic harmony and melody elaborate themselves little by little in the atmosphere of the ancient 5-tone scale, creating an « outline of an instrumental ensemble. »
Painting:
The child paints on damp paper with liquid primary colours, which he applies with large brushes. Prompted and animated by the essence itself of colour, the child becomes creator.
Rhythmic Component:
Through the joy of movement, song and circle-time, the child learns to seize his body in space, in rhythm and finds his place in the movement of the group.
The Festivals:
The life forces, active in the child, make of him a being that is particularly receptive to the nature which surrounds him. The rhythm of the seasons, upon which are based the important festivals of the year form the child by allowing him to experience polar qualities (light, St. John/darkness, Christmas…).
The well-differentiated characters of the cardinal festivals, linked to the four elements, express themselves in the heart of the kindergarten through the « seasonal table »: an evolving, colourful and living evocation which, during festive moments, is experienced in the company of parents (Lantern Festival, Christmas, Carnival, the Summer Party…).
In order for freedom to be attractive, it must have limits and, at the same time, promise and deliver surprises which, while posing an adaptation challenge, allow a return to oneself, in full possession of one’s faculties.
Rich with an experience that goes beyond expectations, which gave much pleasure and comforting apprenticeship, a greater confidence in oneself and in others. » Françoise Dolto – « The Child and the Festival » (20/09/78).
Extracurricular:
Schoolcare
The Waldorf Kindergarten Monaco/Beausoleil proposes an extra schoolcare held every first week of each school holidays’ period,two weeks at the end of the school year and one week at the end of August (before September “come back to school”).
Dates are advertised in the School Calendar, at the beginning of the school year.
The schoolcare can not exceed 8 children from 3 to 6 years old.
The extracurricular is opened to all children, including those who are not enrolled in our Waldorf Kindergarten School.
An educationist and an assistant, both qualified and trained to the Steiner’s pedagogy, lead the extracurricular activity; This latter being registered on « Jeunesse et Sports » of the « Alpes Maritimes Prefecture of Nice ».
The project
That’s during those holidays’ weeks that children have the opportunity to discover, through a given theme, another approach of the kindergarten. One of the main aim being to develop the outside life and to take the best advantage of the various spaces available in our school. The chosen themes are generally linked to nature’s rhythms’ observation.
Some artistic and manual activities are those practiced during the school year, but viewed in another light.
Stories, tales, puppet shows, songs and children songs, add rhythms to the day.
We favor free games in the heart of nature.
Jardinage:
Modeling:
(For the older children) In order to shape bees’ wax, the child produces heat with the activity of his hands, which in turn softens the wax little by little. He expresses freely life movements, which he has within him unconsciously, according to his stage of development: twists, concentrations, stretches and radiance…
Conclusion:
All of the activities contribute to the edification of the human being at a more subtle level.
For example, with regards to modeling, we can easily see that this activity stimulates most especially the sense of touch. And yet this contact, this encounter through the intermediary of the skin is nothing less than the basic experience of confidence in oneself, in others and in the world.
This fundamental feeling of security rests on the experience of the child which it is possible for us to develop by exercising fully the sense of touch. This is why we offer an environment where the child is in contact with natural materials and outlines of forms, which still leave room for the imagination.
