Kindergarten
In the mornings, when the mist is still curling through the trees, I pull on my boots and run down the hill.
The grass is wet and cold on my legs and the cows are in the field, chewing slowly, watching us go by. Sometimes I stop to look for chameleons in the lemon tree, or tiny mushrooms pushing through the soil by the path. They weren’t there yesterday, but somehow they are today — that’s how the forest works.
We spend the day making things — dens and bridges, fairy potions, forts for beetles. We climb the fallen logs and jump off into soft sand. The big old tractor is our ship, our dragon, our bus to anywhere. When it’s too hot, we sit in the shade of the Magic Tree and make leaf crowns, or listen to stories while the wind moves through the tall grass.
Every day is a kind of adventure. We learn how to listen to birds, how to wait quietly until a frog shows itself, how to feel when rain is coming. Sometimes we paint, sometimes we bake, sometimes we just run until we fall over laughing.
Our Kindergarten is not a place apart from life, but a living part of it. We trust in each child’s natural rhythm of unfolding, and in the power of a community that honours curiosity, respect, and relationship as the roots of all learning.
The Kindergarten sits at the heart of a wider learning ecosystem — a living, breathing community where children of many ages learn alongside one another, guided by curiosity and trust. The youngest ones are surrounded by older children who model care, courage and imagination; and the older ones are reminded, through the littlest voices and discoveries, of what it means to be close to wonder.
Here, learning is woven through real encounters with the world. We believe that every child is born whole — already equipped with the drive and capacity to make sense of life in their own way. Our role as adults is not to fill them up, but to accompany them: to listen, to observe, to offer the right material or question or gesture at the right time.
In the Kindergarten, the work is often invisible to the eye. Beneath the laughter, mud pies and story circles, children are learning how to be in relationship — with themselves, with one another, with the land. They are learning how to name feelings, how to take turns, how to ask for help and how to offer it. They are finding out what it means to belong to a group while still being fully themselves.
This is what we mean when we say it takes a village to raise a child. Every day, the Kindergarten draws on the life around it — the farmers, the cooks, the mentors, the older children, the trees and animals that share this place. Together, we create the conditions for children to grow in confidence, empathy and joyful self-reliance.
Here, learning begins not in a classroom, but in a garden — one that grows both children and community.
If you are reading this and wondering what it might feel like for your child to grow here, we invite you to come and see...
