The Black River School is an early childhood education experience offering classes for children and their parents birth through Kindergarten. Our school is inspired by Waldorf education and strives to nurture and support children to develop a strong life sense and healthy well being through developmentally appropriate experiences. A child’s life sense can be seen in their eyes, smile, play, moveme
nt, enthusiasm, gestures, and expressions. One aspect of our developmental approach is educating the child through all their senses; particularly the senses of touch, balance and self movement. The development of these senses takes the child to their inner world where their sense of self, imagination, wonder, curiosity, self nurturing and creative energies all live. When children are happily settled within themselves healthy and happy development unfolds. Unfortunately our culture today is constantly pulling children outside themselves through too much stimulation and not enough developmentally appropriate experiences. Children need healthy rhythms to their day, balanced with an abundance of sleep, lots and lots of movement, time to play as well as time to grow and develop through their work of imitation. The birth to 7 year stage of life is a sensitive period for the development of the will. This development takes place for the child through imitation as well as in the use of their limbs in their work and play. Another aspect of our early childhood setting is storytelling. For the younger child we tell simple stories so as to meet their need to know that the world is good. The older children are told fairy tales. These stories provide experiences that the child is seeking at this age which is a deep understanding of archetypes and lessons of good and evil from which they begin the development of their moral compass. Most stories are told as puppet plays with lots of repetition. The children take these stories in as they begin to develop their sense of self and how they want to be in the world. When a child has a story read to them out of a book they use a single neural pathway in their brain. When a child has a story told to them they bring their imagination to the story and in this experience they use their whole brain. Albert Einstein said, “If you want your children to be intelligent read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent read them more fairy tales”. Children need ample time for movement through forward, backward, up, down and side to side through the sagittal plane and there is no better place to get these experiences than outside This movement is absolutely fundamental for the cognitive growth and development of their brain. Research shows that without these fundamental movement experiences children’s brains are unprepared for reading, listening, and doing the other tasks required in an elementary setting. Outdoor play is the best place for the child to experience these necessary movements. When a child plays on a jungle gym for the first time their brain is engaged in the experience. But as the child plays on the jungle gym over and over their brain is less and less engaged because every time they step on the wooden ladder it is the exact same experience. However when a child digs in a sandbox with a shovel, climbs a tree, swings from a rope, climbs up on a rock, climbs a hill or steps into mud, each and every time their brain is fully engaged in this new experience because it is a different experience each time. And that is why playing outside, which is sadly becoming a lost childhood experience, is so vitally important. Our early childhood program provides experiences of work and play through which the children learn to know themselves and begin the development of their will.
