Full Day Program

  • Full day Kindergarten to First Grade
  • Ages 5 -7
  • Monday through Friday 8:30-3:30

This program includes personalized work and group lessons designed to meet each child’s individual learning needs. The core academic skills, such as Spelling and Math are primarily done from workbooks, while other classes like English, Geography, Writing, Literature and Spanish are taught to small groups. History and Science are taught to age groups spanning 2-3 years. This ensures that we are able to maximize the children’s learning potential while introducing a broad array of concepts.

Afternoon activities primarily include gym, art, music, field trips, etc. The academic work in the afternoon is lighter. Children need to be able to keep up with active afternoons. Please consider this when deciding on full or half day kindergarten. (Speak with Director about 1/2 day option.)

Annual tuition is $5,500. This may be paid in 10 equal monthly installments.

Academic Description

The school falls into the Department of Education’s category of a private school that meets compulsory attendance. While this category is generally associated with religious schools, the school is not religious, but acknowledges a spiritual or inner life. Schools in this category are not required to do state assessments, and may develop their own grading system and progress reports. The Children’s Schoolhouse grading systems and progress reports are definitely unique.

The staff references the Maine State Learning Results and because they provide an excellent guideline to certain milestones in a child’s cognitive development. The school does not put great emphasis on grade levels and is fortunate to have the freedom to let the children develop at their own pace to reach milestones with in a 6-12 month range. While the students who have moved on to public schools are missed, they have demonstrated the strength of our academic credentials in their new school settings.

Occasionally there are students who seem to get stuck or fail to progress in some concepts. When this happens, parents are encouraged to use the free services available to them through the public school in order to discern if there is a learning disability. Although at this time none of the staff is trained in learning disabilities, they are able to implement most recommendations offered by someone who is.

There are many different styles and philosophies of education that have influenced the school’s approach to education. Staff shares the common belief that it is essential to recognize and identify the unique character inside each student and to look at the child as a whole with the basic ideas and principles of both Waldorf and Montessori. The staff believes that school should be an environment where children feel safe to progress at their own pace and are inspired to learn more. This philosophy has proven to be appealing to the home schooling community.