Daily Rhythm
A typical day at Wondergarten includes:
Morning Playtime
Morning playtime is an essential part of our program, as it provides children with the opportunity to develop their imaginations, relationships, and problem-solving skills through creative, free play.
Upon arrival, children can choose to engage with homemade playdough, beeswax crayons, or quality chalk at the classroom table to express their creativity. The playroom is stocked with a variety of natural toys, felted foods, wood blocks, and children's literature for children to explore and play with. We also offer the option for children to play outside during this time.
After a morning of playtime, we transition to circle time by modeling the importance of putting our toys away. This helps children develop a sense of responsibility and prepare for the next activity of the day.
Circle Time
Circle time is a special time when we celebrate the season with stories, songs, and creative movement.
Once the playroom has been cleaned, we will invite the children to a game of Ring-Around the Rosie to encourage everyone to join hands in a circle.
Once settled in, we sing our Good Morning song and then introduce our story of the week, which includes singing and dancing to live instruments played on the piano and guitar.
Once we've finished circle time, we transition to lesson time by taking hands and singing our Come, Follow Me song as we lead the children to the classroom table.
Lesson Time
During lesson time, we rotate between three different types of activities: life skills, baking, and artistic experiences.
Life skills lessons help children feel a sense of belonging, responsibility, and accomplishment as they contribute to various life-based activities such as setting and clearing the table, washing aprons, wiping windows, washing dishes, sweeping the floor, and polishing toys.
On baking day, children get to pour, mix, knead, shape, and prepare a variety of baked goods for the season, which we'll enjoy as our snack the following day.
For artistic experiences, we rotate between wet-on-wet watercolor painting and other seasonal crafts.
When our lesson time is finished, we clean up and prepare the table for snack time. Children are welcome to return to the playroom during this interlude, but we encourage everyone to help clean by modeling the behavior.
Snack & Storytime
Snack time is a delicious and nourishing part of our day. We rotate between warm whole grains like rice pudding, oatmeal, and porridge, fresh fruit, vegetables, and cheese (which the children often cut themselves during lesson time), and baked goods that the children made themselves.
As we eat, we also enjoy stories from the Gnomes of Wondergarten, building a strong foundation for literacy, sequential thinking, and a rich vocabulary through the tradition of oral storytelling, accompanied by engaging visuals and puppetry. As children finish their snacks, they'll begin washing and drying their dishes, putting them back on the shelf, clearing their place at the table, and getting dressed to go outside.
Children are welcome to return to the playroom during this interlude as they wait their turn for the restroom. As soon as the first child is ready, one of the adults will head outside to open up outdoor free play, and each child will join as they're ready.
Outdoor Playtime
Outdoor playtime is a highlight of our day, and we spend at least an hour outside each day, rain or shine, to build resilient bodies and a strong connection to the natural world.
In our garden, the children enjoy watering plants, weeding and raking, planting seeds, and harvesting fruits and vegetables. This helps them connect with the earth and develop a reverence for where our food comes from.
In our field, children are free to run, roll, and play games like hide-and-seek. At the mud kitchen, the children enjoy collecting an assortment of garden treasures to make soups of all kinds. We teach them how to identify different herbs and vegetables, and many of them usually take their treasures home. They also enjoy collecting buckets of water from the mud kitchen and dumping them into ditches they've dug in the playscape to create lakes and rivers.
Around our track, the children enjoy riding their trikes around in little caravans, playing out stories of trains and fire trucks. When it's time to go home, parents come to pick up their children from outside, and our day comes to an end.
Program Details
If you would like to learn more about our program details, follow the link below.