Mission

At Friendship Garden  we believe that young children’s needs are best met in a loving, supportive, and home like environment. Our child care boasts a natural rural setting which provides a safe, peaceful backdrop for wholesome outdoor early learning experiences.

Our infant, toddler and preschool programs are designed to foster the spirit of community. Each child is a valuable and unique community member.  We are all members of an extended family; we will not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, religion or cultural heritage. We will not discriminate based on marital status, political beliefs, disabilities, national origin, sexual orientation or toilet training status.

Philosophy

We follow the MA Standards and Curriculum Guidelines for early Education. We meet and exceed these standards by choosing from many guiding pedagogies. We are not formally trained in one specific style but rather broadly trained in all early childhood education.

Training with Fairy Dust Teaching, Sally Haughey and the 2020 pandemic led to shifts in our environment and teaching style as follows.

Friendship Garden is nature inspired. We are training to be good stewards of the earth. We are learning IN nature, WITH nature and ABOUT nature. We are utilizing our outdoor space 75% of the day. Our aim is to be 100% outside daily, our vision is leading us in that direction. We have a lovely 1-acre wooded property with which to work. Year-round shelter and a supply of clothing for equitable access to this program are in the works.

Friendship Garden is Reggio inspired. Reggio Emilia is a community in Italy raising its children surrounded by beauty and child led investigations.  “This approach is a student-centered and constructivist self-guided curriculum that uses self-directed, experiential learning in relationship-driven environments.” Children are honored as capable co-constructors of their learning.  The Reggio philosophy of early education is guiding our days at Friendship Garden where we are following the lead of the child and developing their interests.

We are child led and play based. Our classrooms belong to the children. The children’s interests are evident in the materials and room arrangement. The influence of the educator is supportive and not overwhelming. The ideas belong to the children.

Our focus is fostering relationships where collaboration, cooperation, self-sufficiency, imagination, self-assurance, and leadership bloom. We are developing artists, engineers, scientists, doctors, plumbers, and the like. We are creating an environment of mutual self-respect. Children’s voices matter, and they need to be listened to. Developmental psychologist and philosopher Alison Gopnik suggests we are “gardeners not carpenters”. We are allowing children to bloom rather than building them.

If you have any questions please feel free to ask!

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