Our Kindergarten
A Kaitiaki Approach
At Miro House we respect the integrity of childhood and what is seen to belong rightfully to childhood. We strive to provide for the rounded and harmonious development of the whole human being, learning from life, for life.
Our dedicated kindergarteners understand and respect the importance of the child’s early years, they create an environment that supports and values natural early childhood development. We actively protect and cultivate the young child’s capacity to wonder, to imagine, and to experience awe and reverence for life, allowing the child to learn in a manner that is unhurried.
Care and respect for our natural world are core values. All adults at our centre strive to ensure that who we are and what we model to the children must be worthy of imitation. Therefore we:
Engage in sustainable environmental practices
Show care and regard for the natural world
Understand we are a role model for children who will, one day, also be making decisions in regard to caring for and nurturing our natural world, so passing this on to a new generation in their turn
Our Outside Environment
Inside and outside, we create a natural environment where children experience the different seasons, play with natural resources and help care for the environment.
From composting and gardening, to sweeping up the autumn leaves, picking fruit or growing vegetables for shared meals they help to make. They might just enjoy being in the garden and watching the life – the birds, the butterflies, worms or other creatures that share the environment with us. In this regard, children are just allowed to ‘be’.
Play
Play is central to the learning and well-being of the young child. In our centre you will see children building houses, buses, planes, cranes, they go camping and recreate festivals – anything their imagination can conjure up they enliven through their play.
Children are given free range to create from the resources available, all made from natural materials that have an open ended quality to them. Whatever the child imagines they can create. It is a true marvel to observe what children bring into form from such simple resources.
Through play, not only are the children developing creative thinking, they are also moving and developing their physical body, they become co-ordinated and dexterous in their movement. They develop their social skills, as much of this play requires a playmate or two.
There is much to negotiate, plan and decide as ideas are shared and played out. The development of a healthy social life, working with and for each other, are key aspects of our educational approach.
As a bonus, our kaiako are skilled story tellers, and bring stories alive through beautiful puppet stories. Children take this into their play and become skilled story tellers in their own right.
A screen free environment
While we understand that technology such as computers, smartphones , iPads and other technology that are in common use are important in our world today, we see this as belonging to a different developmental age and not for early childhood.
Children learn in time and over time. The impact that screen time has on children is only just being understood. In Steiner/Waldorf Kindergartens, we have always seen early childhood as a time to play, to be free and discover the wonders of the world in which we live, this can only occur through real engagement with the world and each other, not through a screen.
