Early Life
Early Life: Building the Foundation for Thriving Children
At Fairhope Organic School, we call the foundational years of development “Early Life,” moving beyond traditional labels like preschool and Kindergarten. This period is crucial for shaping a child’s brain and emotional intelligence, profoundly influencing the adults they will become. We value a child’s natural curiosity through our play-based, child-led organic philosophy with a focus on outdoor education. We follow the state standards as a framework, along with the Blossom and Root curriculum.
Learning Through Play
Our Early Life class is available for full time and part time students. Part time students attend class three days a week: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. In this stage, we nurture young, inquisitive minds by stimulating our natural, playful curiosity. We explore and examine the world around us, our classrooms, campus, and all the places around our school, especially the woods and gully.
We capture and study insects before releasing them. We sing songs, create messy concoctions, cook, count and talk. We play with shapes and colors, and listen attentively while our teacher reads stories to us. We make up our own stories and create convoluted costumes. Our bodies are growing and we eat good food to build strong muscles. We play outside several times a day and learn how to get along and play cooperatively with our classmates.
Our spirits grow as we sing, dance and create masterpieces with crayons and art supplies. We enhance our independence as we learn to do things for ourselves, like tie our own shoes, choose our own clothes and take care of our bathroom needs. When we are eager to learn to read and write we move on.
