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Our Philosophy of Learning
Covenant Nursery School utilizes a developmentally appropriate, play-based approach to guide the path to children’s learning. We believe that play is children’s “work” and the primary mode in which young children construct their understanding of the world. Teachers work to set up an environment that stimulates children to explore, experiment, and interact with their surroundings. Learning is very hands on at this age!
We believe that children all develop along a continuum and each progresses along the continuum at different rates -- individual differences in children are highly respected! Children are encouraged and allowed to grow and develop according to their own developmental readiness. We focus on many different areas of development in young children including: social/ emotional, physical, cognitive and language. Our primary goals are for children to develop a positive sense of self, self-confidence in their abilities, and pro-social ways of interacting with their peers and feel that with these goals children can move on to elementary school with ease.
Teacher's Goals for Children
Reknowned German educator Friederich Froebel, who created the first “kindergarten” or “children’s garden”, was an advocate of children’s creating their own learning. He likened education to a garden where children are given the freedom to grow rather than a place to be molded. We believe each child’s uniqueness must be appreciated and nurtured. Children must be given the freedom to become his/her own person by exploring, manipulating, discovering, and relating to the environment as he/she finds it. We want children to make their own choices of activities and to focus on process rather than product (ie. the experience/ act of painting rather than the finished picture). Children at Covenant are encouraged to explore, wonder, create, make mistakes, question, and repeat experiences from which they can make their own conclusions.
Because everything happens in the context of relationships, an important role of the teacher is to create a secure, trusting relationship with every child in the classroom. Teachers provide warmth, affection, consistency and limits to create a safe environment where every child feels free to be themselves. Teachers allow and provide for honest expressions of each child’s feelings of joy, excitement, anger, sadness and affection. Children will be empowered in expressing their feelings by teachers helping them (through modeling and putting words to their feelings) learn appropriate ways of expressing what they are feeling.
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