At Rowan Tree, we strive to create a warm and inviting space in which your children can play and grow. Large, south-facing windows allow the natural light to shine in all day. Our classroom has a circle area for the children to gather for singing and storytelling. Stories can also be found in Gnome land, where a miniature community of animals and gnomes live together and work hard to help others. In our craft corner children gather to paint, model with clay, create collage, make beading crafts, and work on seasonal art. A daily nature walk to the local parks is also a big component of the day, and the children love to observe the seasonal and daily changes around them as they walk and explore. There is a seasonal nature table in the classroom for the objects that the children find during our walks. Once we are back from our walk, the children eagerly gather for lunch, which is also a popular time for socializing. The children love to be able to use their imaginations during free play and will engage in their own made up stories and adventures about animals and people and the relationships between them.

Waldorf education is a worldwide system of education for preschool through grade 12 developed from the teachings of Rudolf Steiner. Steiner, an Austrian scientist, educator and writer, turned his attention to education after the First World War at the request of a friend who helped Steiner found a school for the children of the workers at the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory in Stuttgart in 1919. The impulse for ‘Waldorf education’ as it came to be called, spread throughout Europe, with the first school in America being founded in New York City in 1928.

Steiner was a pioneer in the area of developmentally based, age appropriate learning, and many of his teachings were later born out by the work of Gesell, Paiget and others. In addition, he sought to develop a balanced education for the “whole child”, one which would engage the child’s feeling and willing, as well as thinking and would leave his or her inner nature acknowledged, but free. From preschool through to high school, the goal of Waldorf education is the same, but the means differ according to the changing inner development of the child.

Waldorf schools were closed by the Nazis during World War II, but soon reopened and have spread in the last two decades to such troubled areas as South Africa, Middle East, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union block countries. Currently there are more than 750 Waldorf/Steiner Schools in 46 countries.

Jessica Lindeman is an educator, musician and artist who lives and works in Peterborough, Ontario. She founded Rowan Tree Preschool in 2004 and has spent the last six years teaching in and developing this Waldorf inspired program.

She grew up in Spring Valley, New York and attended the Green Meadow Waldorf School. Later, she moved to Hawthorne Valley Waldorf School where she graduated. Both her parents were Waldorf school teachers. Her father, William H. Lindeman, taught for 25 years at Green Meadow Waldorf School. As a musician, Jessica studied cello at Ohio University. She is currently a member of the Peterborough Symphony Orchestra and also the member of two trios, the ‘Stringwood Trio’ and ‘Two Flutes and a Cello’. Jessica studied music at Ohio University and later transferred to Trent University, where she did a joint major in Anthropology and Cultural Studies. She graduated in 1990. Jessica also attended the Portland School of Art, studying photography and later received a diploma from Sir Sanford Fleming College in Computer Graphics. She also taught photography there.

Jessica has attended Waldorf education training workshops/intensives at the Toronto Waldorf School, as well as enrolled in the Gateways Conference for the last five years and participated in an ECE training workshop at the Burlington Waldorf School. She has designed her own program of independent study in Early Childhood Development and Waldorf Education.

Jessica is also the mother of two children.

During the early childhood years, the child is surrounded by a home-like environment which encourages imaginative free play and artistic activity. Steiner recognized that the young child learns primarily through example and imitation, with an emphasis on the importance of movement, rhythm, fairly tales and oral language. Steiner felt that it is not healthy for children to concentrate on cognitive skills such as reading, writing, and math until the body has reached a certain level of maturity, eventually freeing the forces of growth for cognitive work. This change is signified by many signs, including the eruption of the adult teeth and the child’s ability to reach over his head and touch the opposite ear. Children are carefully evaluated for readiness for grade one, and most Waldorf schools request that children be six before they start.

Many schools have mixed-age kindergartens, with children from 3-6 years old in the same room. Typical daily activities in the preschool/kindergarten include free play, movement games, story circle, and a craft or artistic activity (water colour painting, beeswax modeling, colouring with beeswax crayons, baking and so forth). Puppet plays, nature walks are also important.

- Beyond the Rainbow Bridge by Barbara J. Patterson and Pamela Bradley