As each child brings important experiences and strengths to the whole class group, Long Ridge School Nursery teachers work with each child’s distinct social, intellectual, creative, and physical development. The Nursery program strives to create a learning environment sparked and sustained by collaborative play and supportive risk-taking so that students have the time, space, materials, and encouragement to try new and more difficult tasks. We work to inspire our students’ sense of curiosity and wonder, and to make them feel happy and confident about themselves, their families, and their friends.
The Long Ridge Nursery program begins our interdisciplinary theme-driven curriculum. Among our Nursery studies are The Seashore, The Farm, Our Selves, Our World at Night, This Pretty Planet, and Going Places. As students focus, for example, on the beach and the creatures who make their home there, they might measure sand or make waves in a tank; they might make art or sculpt playdough that expresses their thoughts about the beach; they may read and make up stories—or a song and dance—about a crab; maybe they’ll pretend to be a seagull or a lifeguard and draw a map of who sits where.
The goal of themed studies in the Nursery program is to excite children about learning and to lend context both to new information and to a child’s individual place in the world. Theme-driven learning also helps children develop logical associations and critical thinking.
Nursery program students attend five days a week from 8:45 until 11:45, with an extended day program offered Mondays through Thursdays until 3pm. Nursery students attend music, library, physical education classes and all-school assemblies.