Our Classrooms
Infant & Toddler Classes
Caterpillars A and B
NFP enrollment can start as early as 6 weeks! Caterpillars A classroom serves our youngest subset of students, typically about 6 weeks to 6 months at the beginning of a school year, while Caterpillars B typically serves students who are between 6 months and 1 year at the beginning of the school year. Our infant and toddler students "follow their own schedule",
per DCF regulations, which means that
each child's individual feeding and
napping schedules are honored.
Our teams work closely with families
to learn and carry out all individual
details of care to provide the most
comfortable environment for our
youngest learners.
Caterpillars teachers focus on so many developmental milestones from
gross motor skills to oral language development. Our teachers are active bodies
who know that being on the floor playing, modeling for, and speaking with children are excellent approaches to early education. Our classrooms offer sensory exploration, gross motor equipment, music, hands-on art projects and more.
Our Caterpillars students get a lot of time on the floor to explore
their classrooms, but they also start their NFP nature experience! With a fenced,
grassy back-yard with age-appropriate play area directly off of the room, the Caterpillars kids can easily get outside multiple times a day. We also use wagons and buggies to go for walks around our great property!
Butterflies
The Butterflies class is intended for our oldest toddlers who
have not turned 2 years old before the first week of September.
Butterflies students continue to hone their gross motor skills with
active play, dancing, and yoga! These friends have a more defined
daily schedule and typically do just one nap a day (though we will
always adjust as necessary) on cots rather than cribs.
Butterflies develop terrific oral language skills and enjoy
lots of books, songs, art projects
and more. Learning goals
include repeating words and using two-word sentences as well as
beginning identifying and sorting and beginning to play dramatic- play games.
These students continue to build on self-care skills that are first introduced in Caterpillars. Using utensils and lid-less cups, washing hands, putting on shoes, and zipping jackets are just some examples.
The Butterflies use a combination of our back-yard and traditional playground. They also begin age-appropriate hikes on our wooded nature trails.
Early Preschool Classes
Robins
Our students who are between 2 and 2.5 years old at the start of the
school year enter the Robins classroom. Even more than before, these friends are ready to get active and soak up as much as they can. As fine motor skills develop, Robins students hone pencil- holding, and other more complex skills like unscrewing lids and carefully turning pages of a book. Robins friends love morning meetings and more group lessons on creative and nature- inspired themes.
Robins teachers encourage
the transition from parallel
play to more engagement with
peers and teachers are always close by during center-play to add more language and information to
student games and activities. Independence building continues
as students clean up their plates, put on their coats, and
typically start more actively potty-training.
Robins students, being over 2 years old, are permitted by DCF to go outside during colder and warmer weather than students under the age of 2. Robins love stomping in mud puddles, exploring the climbers and little nooks in the nature playground, and go on longer hikes daily.
-Under Construction-
Please check back shortly for information on our Badgers, Bears, and Eagles classrooms. Thank you for your patience as we work to offer you more insight into our school!
