About Preschool Philosophy | Glenaeon Rudolf Steiner School

Meaningful adult activity to be imitated

The task of the early childhood educator is to adapt the practical activities of daily life so that they are suitable for the child’s imitation through play… The activities of children… must be derived directly from life itself rather than being “thought out” by the intellectualised culture of adults. …The most important thing is to give children the opportunity to directly imitate life itself.

Rudolf Steiner, The Child’s Changing Consciousness

This includes:

Listening to and observing a puppet/prop story each day
A circle time with songs, action rhymes, movement and imaginative role play
Baking bread, making lunch, setting the table and washing up
Mending, sweeping, crafts, drawing, painting and gardening

Learning through Play

Play is the essential avenue by which the young child comes to understand their physical and social world. In play activities, children can develop verbal, conceptual, physical and social/emotional capacities.

Our program includes:

Child-directed indoor and outdoor play and social interaction
Role play including dress ups, home corner play and cubby building
Story landscapes and healing play
Play with rhymes, sounds and words
Play which enjoys movement
Sensory creative play in the elements e.g. sand, water, mud and stones

Research shows that children best prepare for later academic skills through immersion in regular creative movement, rich oral language, music and creative play and that these are even more beneficial than early work with reading and writing letters, words and numbers.

Neurological Development studies suggest that the proprioceptive and vestibular systems must be well developed through extended time for movement such as running, gardening, climbing, swinging and skipping¹ so that letter and number shapes can be visualised and imprinted. Challenges to literacy skills occur when vestibular functioning is not yet mature.²

¹ Ibid. ² Goddard-Blythe S, The Well-Balanced Child

Parent Education

Regular parent education talks and workshops on celebrating festivals at home, creative discipline, storytelling, healthy foods and supporting child health are held at the preschool and Castlecrag campus regularly and are usually freely available to parents.