Our early childhood programs help each child build a confident sense of self as a unique and capable person in the world and foster caring and respectful interactions within the classroom community. Our Beginners and Nursery programs nurture intellectual curiosity, collaboration, and creative expression, and our children become active and joyful learners who are eager to make sense of the world around them.

Our Beginners program offers a gentle start for children two, turning three years of age. Being part of a school with a unique focus on early childhood and elementary school education offers the advantage of providing the children with wider resources, including music, library, and physical education, which form a regular part of our program. Outdoor play and exploration of our wooded campus are part of the daily routine. Our teachers provide a warm and caring environment for these youngest learners, fostering respectful social interactions within the classroom community in a manner consistent with developmental norms and expectations.

In a warm and engaging learning environment arranged in activity centers and equipped with a rich abundance of materials, Nursery school children build, dress-up, play games, paint, cook, listen to stories, garden, make puppets, construct, sing, put together puzzles, and draw pictures together. Thematic studies provide a platform for experiential learning through which children become innovative thinkers and creative problem-solvers. The promotion of children’s social and emotional development is foundational to our Nursery school program. As children explore, pretend, create, discover, and reflect together throughout the school day, supported by modeling and coaching from teachers, they learn to play cooperatively, negotiate, compromise, and develop self-regulation and resilience.

A child’s experiences from birth to three years old are the most formative years when it comes to educational experiences. This is why early childhood education needs to be taken seriously for all children from nursery school to preschool and of course after that as well. The first three years are when most of the neurons develop in a human’s brain. The focus during the early years is to help children develop social-emotional intelligence. Now teaching social-emotional intelligence may seem rudimentary, but it’s not. Most adults were not properly taught social-emotional skills in school, which is why so many adults need therapy. In therapy, the focus is often on helping an adult navigate through their feelings and develop healthy ways to channel their emotions. When a young child is taught social-emotional intelligence from a young age, they can learn to work through their own emotions, but also take into consideration how their emotions affect others.

Now this is not to say that having social-emotional intelligence be the focus of early childhood education will prevent adults from needing therapy, but it will help children be more self-aware and empathetic for their entire life. The foundation of social emotional skills that start being taught in nursery school and carry through preschool will set any child up for success for the rest of their education.

Contact Long Ridge School if you want your child to receive a quality education from nursery school through preschool and beyond! Our school is accessible to residents of Stamford, New Canaan, and Greenwich, CT. We hope to hear from you soon!