Aberdeen Waldorf School, in common with other schools providing Steiner Waldorf education, has facilities for younger children.

We have a Parent and Toddler Group (ages from birth to 3 years) and a Kindergarten (3 to 6 years). You can read more about each stage by following the links above or finding the pages in Our School in the main menu.

Waldorf schools approach learning in early childhood through guided free play in a classroom environment that is homelike, includes natural materials and provides examples of productive work in which children can take part. This kind of environment is considered to be supportive of a child’s physical, emotional and intellectual growth.

Outdoor play periods are also generally part of the school day, with the intention of providing children with experiences of nature, weather and the seasons of the year. Songs, poems and movement games promote oral language development. These include a daily story time when a teacher usually tells a fairytale, which is not read from a book.

Aids to development via play generally consist of simple materials drawn from natural sources that can be transformed imaginatively to fit a wide variety of purposes. Waldorf dolls are intentionally made simple in order to allow playing children to employ and strengthen their imagination and creativity.

The education emphasizes early experiences of daily, weekly and annual rhythms, including seasonal festivals drawn from a variety of traditions, with attention placed on the traditions of the local community. Thus, though Waldorf schools in the Western Hemisphere have traditionally celebrated Christian festivals such schools are now incorporating an increasingly wide range of cultural and religious traditions. Schools located where Jewish, Buddhist, or Islamic traditions are dominant celebrate festivals drawn from these traditions.

Extract of Wikipedia article