Kindergarten Program

At Gulmohar, children are encouraged to appreciate the natural world and to understand its processes and the patterns of the seasons. Being outdoors in nature is a mandatory part of our daily curriculum. In every season, children experience unstructured play in nature each day in our expansive back garden. The beauty of nature, in its plants, insects, and animals is brought to the children with a sense of awe and wonder. In the beginning, children who are not used to being outdoors regularly and are hesitant in getting into the sandpit or playing with the mud, slowly start to open up to nature and in time, are in complete oneness. This is a big part of our integral philosophy on the preservation of nature and empathy towards our planet; our children are the future and if they develop a deep connection to the Earth and her rhythms at this age, they can grow up to care about and help in the environmental crises that the world is headed towards.

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Our outdoor program is rich with a large sandpit, natural tree trunks and stumps, big beautiful trees, a mud kitchen, hammocks and swings. Children can engage in creative activities and climb and balance on the stumps and logs, play with water and sand, haul water and dig and pull the wheelbarrows with wooden logs and rocks and cherish the ladybugs and butterflies in the garden.

We also have regular weekly outdoor activities that include wood-working and clay modelling as well as creating nature crafts and seasonal activities like building an outdoor fire in the winter and outdoor shelters in the summer. Throughout the year, our students actively participate in all stages of gardening–from composting to sowing seeds to raking leaves–the year comes full circle, nourishing the souls of the children.

Speech and language development is woven through all our activities throughout the day. Children experience a variety of fairytales and stories throughout the year; the telling and retelling of these timeless tales invites children to step into a world of imagination and creativity and helps them to build a strong vocabulary and memory. It also helps them to build comprehension skills by learning the key components of the story such as character, setting and problem solving. Children delight in the rich language sequences, the alliteration, rhyme and word families. 

 

During Circle time, the songs, rhymes and rhythmic games that are used are traditional and rich in beautiful words and sounds, and connect the children to their rich cultural and lingual heritage. This is also a way to work holistically with children’s articulation, enunciation and language fluency. Moreover, we use imaginative and expressive language during circle time and children can absorb language rules and bring the images into their everyday life and observations. All these elements work on building language skills, strengthening the breathing rhythms of the children and building muscle coordination between the brain and the tongue. The child develops strong receptive and expressive language skills and the ability to communicate well

Each day of the week brings a new hands-on activity and opportunity for the children to strengthen fine motor skills and confidence in the arts, with artistic activities that include plant-dyeing, simple finger knitting, beeswax modeling, weaving, wet-on-wet watercolor painting, wool felting, sewing, and engaging in seasonal crafts. Through these activities, they develop a love and care for the things in their "classroom" home.

 

Refining fine motor movements in handwork stimulates the motor cortex of the brain to become active and agile. As the hands work, the brain builds visual-spatial sequencing and new neural pathways are laid out. The more repetitive a task is, the more it stimulates neuroplasticity by myelinating the neural pathways and the easier a nerve impulse can flow. The brain starts to sequence better, and completing a tangible physical task increases self-esteem and builds confidence. These hand movements stimulate and build cognitive resilience by engaging the brain in complex bilateral tasks. So making manual crafts acts as a powerful tool for brain development as well as being therapeutic for the nervous system.

 

Music is an integral part of school life, woven into nearly every moment. Teachers guide children and introduce new activities through song and movement, using soothing tones and beautiful melodies to invite them into a world of imagination and creative play. As children sing along with their teachers, they explore pitch, rhythm, melody, and creativity, often making up their own songs. Instruments such as the tabla, flute, guitars, glockenspiels, lyres, recorders, rattles, bells, and chimes are incorporated throughout the day, enriching the learning experience and adding to the sense of delight and rhythm

Circle time at Gulmohar is a special experience. It is a time when the children come together in a circle and engage as a group with each other and the teachers. There are many aspects to the Circle according to Waldorf pedagogy–as the year progresses, it slowly develops and evolves with more and more complex physical movement with rhythms and rhymes, sequencing games, beanbag exercises, and imaginative movement journeys accompanied by seasonal songs and recitation. It is the most joyful way to build memory and attention span; regular repetitive physical activity and movements strengthen muscles and bones, enhance coordination, and boost mood. It helps children recover from emotional upsets and releases dopamine and serotonin. Active whole-body play helps children process information better and retain new concepts more easily. That is why we always have Circle time before the children sit down to do some gentle academic work.

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Also, as a part of Circle time, we often include ‘Zoo Exercises’ or animal movements that help the children to integrate retained primal reflexes and promote emotional and physical well-being. Long poems and songs help to build memory and sequencing. We also have number sequencing games and rhymes during circle time with ascending and descending numbers with movement and the foundations of the times tables with beanbags. The Movement Journey is an imaginative way of connecting the children together as a group and helps to transport the children into a magical world where movement and gesture is connected through imagery and song.

‘Doing’ is learning. Gulmohar is a community of  ‘doers,’ and through work, the young child learns to develop good  motor and practical skills. Learning through doing and experiencing,  young children ‘think’ with their entire physical being, and learn about the world in an experiential way. The will is developed through doing activities that are purposeful and have meaning, and such activity brings long-term benefits to learning later on. Young children learn through rhythm and repetition, because regular patterns of activities create routine and instill a sense of security and self confidence. This provides a real foundation for the understanding of time and helps children to relate to the world. Recurring experiences strengthen and develop memory, and repetition helps to support good habits.

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 Taking part in daily meaningful tasks that support the life of the classroom builds a deep sense of capability and contribution to the community. The teachers are worthy role models for the children as they engage in rhythmic, joyful work and the children eagerly emulate them. Completing a task from start to finish builds a sense of perseverance and resilience in the children, and engaging in real practical work gives them the capability to concentrate for longer periods of time. The children are valued contributing members of their classroom community, and they thoroughly enjoy daily chores and tasks. These activities help children develop a sense of responsibility, independence, joy in service and connection to the world around them. Teachers work to create an environment that is both stimulating and worthy of a child’s imitation, encouraging meaningful physical activity.

The celebration of festivals is an important part of Waldorf education.  Throughout history, festivals have emerged from people’s connection with their spiritual life and their search for the meaning of human existence. The celebrations are interwoven with the life of the earth and the cycles of nature. A festival is a joyous celebration of life and has the quality of lifting us from the ordinary into the mysteries and magic of the rhythm of the seasons. Our curriculum at Gulmohar is enriched by celebrating seasonal and cultural festivals. Festivals are a way in which the children, teachers and staff and the wider school community mark the passing of time through each year and the mood of the different seasons. This promotes the connection with the wider community and also with the natural world. Drawing from our own Pakistani cultural celebrations as well as universal seasonal festivals, we celebrate our common humanity and form deeper bonds with our own roots.

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For example, we celebrate autumn and the falling of leaves with our Lantern Festival, experiencing this time of the year in a magical way with a lantern walk in the leaves and experiencing the spiritual reality of what is happening on Earth during this time of year. We feel the crispness of the air and feel the crunch of dried leaves under our feet, we enjoy the songs and stories linked with autumn and eat warm and nourishing foods. This brings a sense of reverence in the children and unites the whole community.

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In winter, we celebrate our Winter Spiral Festival that marks the winter solstice. The children walk the evergreen spiral to light a candle from the source deep within the center of the spiral, walking to the sound of the bansuri. As we approach the darkest days of the year, we must seek that inner light and strength to sustain us through the cold winter.

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In spring, we celebrate Basant, a festival of kites and colour. This is the festival of renewal and joy, where the earth is springing back to life  and is becoming adorned with flowers and greenery once again. The earth is coming back from hibernation, and the seeds and animals are awakening. The joy of flying kites and eating traditional snacks with the whole community is a joyful experience indeed.

 

Each child is special to us at Gulmohar, and birthdays are a special milestone in each child’s life. Birthday celebrations are a big part of our program and they are celebrated with great joy, with special stories and decorations and food. These birthday celebrations are designed to honor the child, bring them together with their family, and support their connection to the whole group.

 

Other festivals we celebrate are Ramadan, Eid, Harvest time, and Eid Milad un Nabi. Through crafts and stories, food and community, these special festivals stir the children to begin to perceive the beauty around us.

At Gulmohar, the teachers are the beloved adults who nurture the children and, through their own enthusiasm, encourage free play. Play is not a luxury or entertainment for the young child; it is the foundation for healthy development. An expanding body of research confirms that unstructured, child-led play builds critical capacities for physical, cognitive, emotional, and social development. Over the past 25 years, thousands of studies have explored play’s impact on executive function, self-regulation, emotional regulation, and creative and critical thinking.

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At Gulmohar, we recognise that play is the most important factor in the healthy development of the child’s gross and fine motor skills through a movement-rich environment; But we also know fundamentally that play builds the brain. Executive functions like working memory, cognitive flexibility and impulse control all develop through playful activity, and open-ended, hands-on engagement and works on creativity, symbolic thinking and problem-solving. All of these are foundations for academic readiness. Physical play is the key contributor to early motor coordination and imaginative play in particular allows children to explore consequences, integrate new learning, and simulate real-life scenarios.

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The materials in the classrooms at Gulmohar are varied and beautiful and lovingly crafted by hand: silks and stones, blocks and logs, dolls and felt animals, all these open-ended items offer children a boundless canvas for both imaginative play and practical work. Our highly valued creative play helps to support children in navigating their social-emotional environment, and the simplicity and authenticity of the materials nurture the free flow of their imagination. This will foster the creative thinking that becomes the strong foundation for emotional resilience, mental innovation, and ideation later on in life