About Us
Covid-19 update: We are fully vaccinated campuses. All children can now get their Covid-19 shots! Hooray!
OUR EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION PHILOSOPHY
Welcome to Tabor Tots, State of Oregon Certified In-Home Educational Facility. Our school is located at the base of Mt. Tabor off of 62nd and Belmont in SE Portland, Oregon. Our program is open to children 2-5 years and is taught by trained teachers in both Waldorf and Montessori.
The goal is to nurture and protect the young child’s sense of wonder and imagination. Children are encouraged to play, explore and imagine in a loving environment filled with natural materials. Daily activities provide a comforting and reliable rhythm, including prep, cooking & baking, watercolor painting, beeswax modeling, and puppet plays. Songs, nature walks, and stories that honor the natural world and it’s changing seasons are celebrated daily.
The curriculum is designed to allow children to gain confidence in their personal strength, an awareness of their individual gifts, and the desire to share their joy with others in society. Children are involved in both independent and collaborative tasks that teach them to develop in their own unique way while working cooperatively with others.
I am struck by the fact that the more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core, and I do think the same is true of human beings. We do not wish to see children precocious, making great strides in their early years like sprouts, producing a soft and perishable timber, but better if they expand slowly at first, as if contending with difficulties, and are solidified and perfected. Such trees continue to expand with nearly equal rapidity to extreme old age.
-Henry David Thoreau
ABOUT WALDORF/MONTESSORI EDUCATION
Waldorf education is an education of the head, heart and hands. Waldorf schools strive to awaken and ennoble capacities within the growing child, rather than merely impose intellectual content. A child who is balanced in feeling, has initiative in action and clarity of thought is the aim of a Waldorf education. At Tabor Tots a foundation will be laid where the child can begin the journey toward these goals.
Montessori education is fundamentally a model of human development, and an educational approach based on that model. The model has two basic elements. First, children and developing adults engage in psychological self-construction by means of interaction with their environments. Second, children, especially under the age of six, have an innate path of psychological development. Based on her observations, Montessori believed that children at liberty to choose and act freely within an environment prepared according to her model would act spontaneously for optimal development.
- Construction in proportion to the child and his/her needs
- Beauty and harmony, cleanliness of environment
- Order
- An arrangement that facility movement and activity
- Limitation of materials, so that only material that supports the child’s development is included
Play Based Curriculum
We start our day using song, rhyme, movement and dance. Children learn about weather, animals, nature and craft (cooking, building, cleaning, etc.). Morning circle incorporates language acquisition, fine and gross motor skills, creative exploration and self-discipline through play. The morning circle is then followed by a period of free play and a guided activity – baking, painting, drumming, cleaning and other focused hand work.
Many of the classroom materials are handmade and come from nature, with an emphasis on objects that have multiple uses and stimulate imaginative play. Within our 4&5 year old curriculum, “academic choice” materials build upon foundational concepts in math, art, science, language, writing and practical life with hands-on exploration.
Daily outdoor time, rain or shine, in our wonder-filled play yard and gardens, provides opportunity for the children to explore and imagine in a natural setting. Tabor Tots Preschool provides natural gnome hidy holes, sturdy climbing tree, and fairy gardens, creating many playful options and challenges for the children.
Daily Rhythm
Open
Teacher gathers children for morning lessons
Breakfast
Open Play
Lunch
Rest time
Guided indoor activities
PM Snack
Outside play (weather permitting)
School closed (late pickup incurs a fee)