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Nursery (3 to 4 Years Old)
Fall Registration Now Open!
By age 3 your child is ready to experience the first steps away from the shelter of home and family. The Toronto Waldorf School Nursery provides a safe and beautiful home-like experience for 12 preschool children, led by an experienced Waldorf teacher and assistant.
Schedule options
 Half-Day Program: Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday only: 8:30 am to noon
- Half-Day Program: Monday to Friday: 8:30 am to noon
- Full-Day Program: Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday, or 5 days
After-School Program is available until 6 pm at no additional cost for the Full-Day program.
Play as a Foundation for Healthy Development
 Preschool children learn primarily through play and imitation in the TWS Nursery program.
- Child – initiated play lays the foundation for healthy growth and learning in a range of areas, from gross and fine motor skills to the development of imagination and creativity. Your child’s academic work in the years ahead will build on the base created in these early years.
- Storytelling, songs and verses help children develop the capacity to listen, focus and create their own visual images. Future reading comprehension and creative thinking will draw strongly on this capacity.
- Your child’s linguistic development is enhanced by the rich language of stories, songs and verses.
- Storytelling draws on the everyday experiences of the young child’s life - home, family and nature.
- Stories also spawn the early make - believe play that grows into full imagination with the capacity to form inner pictures. Development of imagination is a cornerstone of flexible thinking and creative problem solving, a hallmark of Waldorf education.
Class Rhythm
- The Nursery Class has very consistent daily and weekly rhythms to support and guide your child’s explorations of their new environment.
- Rhythm provides the security of predictability and supports healthy physical development
- The day is structured to alternate between active and quiet activities. Free play might be followed by a quiet activity such as listening to a story and then time exploring in the garden. This supports the children in digesting each activity and feeling harmonious and receptive to our rich curriculum.
Activities
- Free play time indoors
 - Art: Watercolour painting and drawing with beeswax crayons
- Circle time with nursery rhymes, songs and movement games
- Storytelling, often accompanied by table puppets to provide concrete visual experience
- A nutritious snack prepared daily, shared by children and teachers
- Outdoor play each day in the nursery play garden or adventure walks into nearby fields, farm and forest on the safe TWS campus. The natural resources of the TWS grounds provide a wide diversity of options for curious, active children. Read more about what the children do typically. Warm and wet weather clothing is needed to ensure that children will fully benefit from this wonderful opportunity.
- Special activities such as the simple celebration for each child’s birthday and the end of year puppet show and picnic.
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Role of Teachers
- Teachers join in the children’s play, as needed, to help build houses, bridges and tunnels and to model appropriate social interaction.
- As the children develop over the year they begin to initiate play and are less dependent on teachers’ involvement.
- Hands-on work by the teachers (baking, cooking cleaning and gardening) lends itself to imitation, the young child's first cognitive exploration of the world.
- Children model activities and the way in which they are carried out.
- Your child will mimic and absorb the conscious attention paid to each individual, respectful social interactions, thoughtful speech and healthy movement.
- Through this imitation, children are imbued with important values such as respect for self and others, kindness, industriousness and a sense of wonder and fulfillment.
Parental Involvement
- Parent Evenings held through the year provide an opportunity to discuss parenting issues and challenges, and explore the Waldorf approach to raising preschool children. These are an integral part of the program and one or both parents are expected to attend.
- Gateways, an annual conference for parents of young children, is held at TWS each spring. Many parents choose to attend this event to support their parenting work.
- The Nursery program requires an annual contractual commitment. The admissions process includes an individual meeting with the teacher.
Registration
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