Early Childhood

The Kindergarten is located in a beautiful area adjacent to the Primary School amongst lush gardens and natural playgrounds all located in a separate fenced area.

We welcome a total of 28 students into Kindergarten. Children are eligible to attend Kindergarten in the year they turn 6.

Our Kindergarten operates 5 days per week, between Monday and Friday, starting at 9am and finishing at 2.45pm.

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The Kindergarten Handbook gives comprehensive information about many aspects of the Kindergarten, please click above to view the Handbook. More Handbooks relating to the School are available from the Forms & Downloads page

If a child plays so that they are satisfied, they will have the foundation for health, and the ability to do what they need to do in later life.

Rudolf Steiner: The Spiritual Ground of Education, 1922

The Young Child

“The young child up to the age of 6 or 7 years is characterised by a gesture of trust and openness toward the world. This includes the capacity of the child to absorb sense impressions right into their being without the reflective or analytic skills of the older student or adult.” Australian Steiner Curriculum Framework

Our Kindergarten environment and program is structured to meet the needs of each individual child, as they make the transition between pre-school and the formal learning environment of the primary school. At this age,  the young child wants to be physically active, learns by imitation, and lives in a world of “doing” – of will activity. For this reason, in the Kindergarten, learning through imitation is a fundamental key to our work with children. The children are given the time and opportunity to practise new skills: engaging in authentic home and garden activities… cleaning, sweeping, digging, weeding, building, kneading… all the things that they would see done and wish to imitate in the home.

In our Kindergartens, children engage in various artistic experiences, including water-colour painting, beeswax modeling, singing games and rhymes, story-telling, puppetry, sewing and wool crafts. They also have a joyous experience of the seasons and special occasions through family festival celebrations.

Play

“The materials and toys in a Steiner kindergarten stimulate the children to use their powers of imagination and fantasy. As these powers are developed, children become able to transform natural materials into any kind of toy. They can use pieces of wood that have been left in their natural shapes as tools, musical instruments, telephones, vehicles, tickets to a performance, food for a feast, or the gold and jewels of a buried treasure hidden by pirates.” Robert Trostoli, ‘Rhythms of Learning’

We maintain a healthy balance between structured group activities and self-directed play in the kindergarten. The children are given the time to play, and materials to play with, which allow them to engage in rich, imaginative play. Our play materials include items that have their origin in nature, such as wood, shells, seed pods and pine cones, simple toys such as dolls and puppets, carved wooden animals, simple pieces of furniture and hand-crafted objects. The children create and build from these materials, houses and cubbies, shops, hospitals, factories, machines, rafts and boats, forests and mountains.

True observation of man sees in the growing human being a work of divine creation.

Rudolf Steiner. A Modern Art of Education. 1923

Periwinkle

Periwinkle Children’s Centre is located in Sunrise Beach, Byron Bay and caters to children of preschool age, providing early Steiner based learning experiences. Many of our students commenced their learning at Periwinkle and completed their journey with us from Kindergarten to Year 12.

Periwinkle offers a home-away-from-home environment for children aged three to five.

The Steiner-based program values the importance of self-initiated play, artistic work and household activities to meet the needs of what is an active and imitative stage of childhood.

The daily rhythm explores the joyous and wondrous experience of the seasons and special occasions through music, storytelling and family festival celebrations. The young child, as an implicit learner, is nourished and guided through their daily learning experiences.

Contact Periwinkle
Haley (Lily) Stafford
Phone
(02) 6685 8898
Email
info@periwinkle.nsw.edu.au

Play is the work of childhood. When children play they are experiencing the world with their entire being…

Rudolf Steiner

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The Young Child

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Periwinkle

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