What Are the Needs of Five Year Olds?
Ask Kytka Archives: July 22, 2002

This question comes just at the right time. The lovely Ms. Joan Almon, Waldorf Kindergarten Master Teacher and Chairman of the Waldorf Kindergarten Association has allowed us to reprint this article:

What Are The Needs of Five Year Olds?
by Joan Almon

A Waldorf kindergarten is an extension of the family experience, an intermediate step for the child between the home and formal schooling. The goal is to provide a warm, calm, secure, aesthetic environment in which the imagination and creativity of the child will flourish.

The quality of the environment of a Waldorf kindergarten is integral to its goals for the children. The feeling of warmth and security is created by using only natural materials: woods, cotton, wool in the construction of the decor and toys. The curtains transmit a warm glow into the room. In this warm environment are placed toys which the children can use to imitate and transform the activities that belong to everyday adult life. In one corner stands a wooden scale and baskets for children to pretend they are grocery shopping; a pile of timber stands ready to be constructed into a playhouse, a boat or a train; a rocking horse invites a child to become a rider; homemade dolls lie in wooden cradles surrounded by wooden frames and cloths the children can use to create a pretend family and play house. (more…)