Kindergarten
If a young child has been able in his play...to give up his whole being to the world around him...he will be able, in the serious tasks of later life, to devote himself with confidence and power to the service of the world.


- Rudolf Steiner

Kindergarten

We are very happy to be able to offer a wonderful kindergarten program ​in a beautiful space. Here is a letter from our kindergarten teacher Yasmeen Osman to the Community:

"It is with great anticipation and pleasure that I have accepted to lead the kindergarten program at the new Waldorf Initiative in Ottawa. I completed my Waldorf Teacher Training in Early Childhood Education at Sunbridge College in New York. After 11 years of teaching at Parsifal Waldorf School, I founded the independent Garden Gate program which has just completed its 10th year of serving the community.
My intention is to continue to create a warm and welcoming space that nurtures a feeling of safety and security in the children. From that foundation, they can explore fully in creative free play, the cornerstone and gift of a Waldorf early childhood experience. The children's holistic development is further supported by storytelling, singing, movement, and artistic and domestic activities."

​Two “magic” words indicate how children enter into relationship with their environment. These words are imitation and example. The Greek philosopher Aristotle called human beings the most imitative of creatures. For no age in life is this truer than for the first age of childhood, before the change of teeth. Children imitate what happens in their physical environment. […] “Physical environment” must, however be understood in the widest sense imaginable. It includes not just what happens around children in the material sense, but everything that occurs in their environment – everything that can be perceived by their senses, that can work on the inner forces of children from the surrounding physical space. This includes all moral or immoral actions, all wise or foolish actions that children see.

- Rudolf Steiner
in The Education of the Child