Little Red School House
and Elisabeth Irwin High School

A Pre-K-12 Progressive Education

List Detail

Kindergarten

Kindergarteners are energetic, curious, creative, and determined. LREI supports them in their growing eagerness to learn about and become members of their larger community, while also maintaining their individuality. Through cooperative play and collaborative problem solving, kindergarteners practice expressing their opinions and feelings appropriately. They become independent thinkers and risk takers who construct meaning through their own learning experiences.

In the fall, kindergarteners work on building a greater understanding of themselves and their classroom community. This prepares them to then embark on a study of the school, which is an integral part of LREI’s social studies curriculum. Kindergartners learn about the people who work in the LREI community and their many responsibilities. They go on school tours, do observational drawings around the building, and conduct interviews with community members. Students share and process what they learn by writing books, creating puppet shows, building with blocks, mapping school spaces, creating dioramas of classrooms and offices, engaging in dramatic play, and sketching the building. As the study continues, kindergarteners grow more independent in developing and asking questions, investigating, and communicating ideas.

Kindergarteners have many opportunities to assert themselves as citizens of our school community. For example, after interviewing the custodian who takes care of the classrooms, students are motivated to help take care of their own classroom. After touring the kitchen and learning how lunch is prepared, students feel inspired to write notes thanking the kitchen staff for their work. It also takes courage for kindergarteners to interview faculty and staff, gather data, and present their findings to their peers, families, and other community members.

Critical thinking is another major component of the “School Study”. Children are tasked with learning about the people who work in our School, which includes gathering data about the number of teachers who work in the lower school and the number of classrooms and offices on each floor. In math, students use different ways to present the information they gather, such as creating graphs, writing surveys, and drawing maps.