OUR PHILOSOPHY

Golden Pond School's philosophy of education is based upon the developmental theories of Piaget and Lev Vygotsky and the brain-based educational research of Renate and Geoffrey Caine. These theories are also supported by the owner, Kathleen Burrell’s 20 years’ experience teaching 3-12 year olds and her extensive study of recent cognitive research and its application to education. This means that at Golden Pond we nurture and educate the whole child. We actively promote the emotional, social, intellectual, and physical growth of every child in our care.

At the heart of our philosophy is a conviction that we have an opportunity and responsibility to help children become happy, successful, lifelong learners. Golden Pond School’s programs provide children with tactile, hands-on learning experiences because children learn best when they are actively involved in the learning process. The curricular emphasis is organized around manipulating, creating, building, exploring and actively constructing knowledge. Preschool activities are presented in a fun and interesting manner which invites children to immerse themselves in the activities. Our methods, from developmental basics to beginning reading, writing and mathematics reflect an age-appropriate and natural style furthering the development of positive attitudes toward learning.

At Golden Pond we believe that children come to us with an innate curiosity. It is our job to feed that curiosity and make learning meaningful for each child by incorporating practices that reflect both the child’s age and his/her individual needs. We place a strong emphasis on learning to think critically and creatively, to work cooperatively, and solve problems. We believe that effective teaching capitalizes on the child’s natural motivation to explore, experiment, and to make sense of his or her world.

To accomplish this we offer an integrated, hands-on science and language based curriculum, which includes art, music, movement and Spanish.