What We offer

We offer preschool for children ranging from 2.5 years old to pre-kindergarten age for the calendar school year to the San Juan Island community.

Sweetgrass offers Waldorf-inspired preschool and family support for the community on San Juan island. Teachers and students will spend their time outdoors in the gated play garden or on nature walks on the property surrounded by meadow and forest land. Our small class size ensures each child and their family receives the support and care they need to thrive. 

We believe in supporting not only your growing child, but parents and families too. Our teaching staff includes a Waldorf-Certified Preschool Teacher and a Waldorf-Certified Kindergarten Teacher, and all of our Lead Teachers and Assistant Teachers meet the requirements set by Washington State's Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF). We offer new family home visits, individualized plans for entering our care, five parent educational meetings and two parent teacher conferences to answer questions or just to give insight on your child in our care. Our four seasonal community events invite your whole family to join throughout the year. 

Continue reading this page for an in-depth picture of our outdoor nature-based program. 

Age Range

Age range: 2.5 years old to pre-kindergarten age
We are a mixed-age group. However, there may be times when children who are 4.5 years old or older will do specific “kindergarten” activities that may take them away from the larger group with 1-2 teachers for a short time.

Schedule

Beginning September and ending June
4 days/week (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) 
9am - 1pm 

Philosophy

Sweetgrass’s philosophy is that being in nature is innate to a child’s emerging development. Exposure to nature has been shown to improve a child’s attention span, increase their self-regulation and the ability to cope with life’s stressors, and develop happiness, empathy, and cooperation. With this in mind, Sweetgrass’s Waldorf-inspired, outdoor nature-based curriculum aims to nourish the whole child - body, mind, and soul. The flow of the program is determined by the natural rhythms of the seasons and by the interests of the children.

In line with the Waldorf pedagogy, children will experience a program that encompasses:

  • Calm: An unhurried pace and setting supports the young child to make the bridge from home to school.

  • Warmth: Love and warmth binds the children in trust.

  • Rhythm: A consistent daily rhythm provides a critical sense of security for a young child; activities are designed to follow the natural rhythms of a child’s day and year.

  • Season: Children are rhythmic beings. They live so deeply in their bodies and in doing so are deeply connected to the natural world around them. To find this connection and wellbeing we follow mother nature’s plan and the rhythm of the year, staying in direct relationship with the seasons. 

  • Beauty: The surrounding environment and space nurtures children's senses.

  • Play: Children are supported in their natural developmental need for play by emphasizing imagination through purposeful activity, social life, movement, song, storytelling, and the space to play freely.

  • Wonder: We uphold a deep sense of gratitude, reverence, and awe for the seasons and the natural world around us.

Daily Activities

  • Explorative movement through walking, climbing, jumping, rolling, swinging, digging, etc. 

  • Free play

  • Development of fine and gross motor skills through practical work such as flour grinding, food preparation, gardening, building, cleaning and caring for our space, woodworking, and dressing

  • Circle time with songs and fingerplays; inspiring the space within the child for later reading

  • Coloring 

  • Storytime with puppetry 

  • Community building 

  • Slow and gradual learning of empathy for others and social graces 

  • “Kindergarten activities:” While all the children are together in one class, older children who are closer to kindergarten age will have the opportunity to practice and develop a different set of age appropriate skills (including pre-reading, -writing, and -math skills). These will be taught through:

    • Shared conversations, book reading, language games, puppetry, and songs

    • Real life practice, including carpentry, sewing, cooking, dice games, jump rope games, painting and modeling. 

    • Some formal teaching of writing.

    • Families with children of this age will receive more information from the Director/Lead Teacher.

Community and Family Events

  • “Work Party” to help create the outdoor and indoor space in preparation of the first week

  • Seasonal Celebrations: Autumn Festival, Winter Spiral, Welcoming Spring, End of Year Closing 

  • 5 Parent Educational Gatherings

Our Gated Play Garden Space

Our gated play garden is where we start the morning each day in welcoming the children. We have a large sand-play area, built by parents from Sweetgrass’s first class, and a very busy mud kitchen. The water pump allows children the freedom of water play. We have an apple orchard with low branches, several swings, and covered table space. Raised beds border one wall of the fence which offer a perfect opportunity for gardening though all seasons.

Our Wild Space

Sweetgrass is located on a 5 acre parcel on Cattle Point Road surrounded by protected Land Bank land. We are fortunate to have the ability to hike, play, explore, and be fully immersed in nature, with ample time for self-initiated play. A grove of trees on Sweetgrass property also provides space for whittling, swinging, planting and digging.

“The heart of the Waldorf method is that education is an art - it must speak to the child’s experience. To educate the whole child, his heart and his will must be reached, as well as the mind.”

— Rudolf Steiner