Our Curriculum

Wildflowers Preschool's teaching philosophy is a unique mix of Reggio Emilia, Montessori and Environmental Education. All three approaches to early childhood education give children some control over the direction of their learning and highlight the importance of using all senses to learn and honor the endless range of ways children express themselves.

We build our curriculum around the current interests of our students. Children are most engaged when given the opportunity to follow their natural inquiries about the world around them. With any unit that we do, we try to include as many sensory-rich, hands-on activities as possible. We also like to plan special field trips that go along with our topic of interest.   

Some sample units we have done in the past include:

• Oceans

• Great Books and Authors

• Hibernation

• Animal Tracking

• Dwellings Around the World

 Special hands-on projects we have used with these units include:

• Making a life size killer whale

• Sponsoring a whale

• Writing to our favorite authors

• Binding our own books about ourselves

• Following the daily life of a black bear and her cub in a den with a live web cam

• Making casts of animal tracks we found at the park

• Building our own school cob bench

Reggio Emilia

ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION

Reggio Emilia

· Emergent Curriculum: follows children’s natural interests and curiosities

· Project Work: long term, multi-faceted studies of a rich topic

· Representational Development: the many languages of children

· Collaboration: everyone fills different roles, works together towards shared goals

· Teachers as Researchers: teachers listen, facilitate, and provoke more questions

· Documentation: how we show the learning process, the questions and ideas

· Environment: carefully laid out to inspire learning and care for emotional needs

Montessori

ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION

Reggio Emilia

· Self-Education: children direct their own learning

· Individual Instruction: teachers work individually to take children to their next step

· Didactic Materials: self-correct so children can learn specific tasks (ex: puzzles)

· Environment: is child-sized and set up for independent use by children

· Teacher as Directress: teachers gently guide children in their individual learning

· Practical Life: encourages child capability through dressing, cleaning, cooking, etc

· Beautiful Materials: are pleasing to the senses and show children respect and value

ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION

Awareness: of environmental issues facing our worlds, such as endangered animals

· Knowledge: lots of opportunities to learn about plants and animals

· Attitude: help children develop positive attitudes towards the outdoors

· Skill Building: to investigate our environment (prisms, binoculars, bird books)

· Participation: get children involved in projects (fundraising, building, recycling)