Early Childhood

Each day in The College School early childhood program holds many possibilities for finding challenge, creating, expressing ideas, and working together. Walk into our preschool, and you will observe children interacting in small and large groups as they express themselves in a hundred languages, including dialogue, music, dance, construction, art, drama, cooking, science, math, and emergent literacy.

These languages often express the interests and learning of the children through short or long-term studies. Children might explore questions such as, “What does it mean to live in the St. Louis metropolitan area?” or “What causes fog?” In the latter example, children might take a walk through the fog, which could result in a video of the children’s theories about what causes this wonderful phenomenon.

Teachers regularly document the children’s work and ideas through photography, videotape, displays and writing, as they strive to support each child’s capabilities and potential to the fullest extent.  We both nurture and challenge the whole child as they develop academically, emotionally, socially, psychologically, and physically.

Since 1992, The College School’s Early Childhood Program has been inspired by the educational approach of the renowned preschool programs in Reggio Emilia, Italy, named by Time Magazine as “one of the ten best school systems in the world.”  The College School’s program is known nationally and internationally as a result of our own particular application of the Reggio Approach. We have hosted thousands of visitors and delegations of educators from the U.S. and around the world, who are eager to study this curriculum for young children.

We have combined The College School’s dynamic experiential program with the Reggio schools’ strong history of exploration of the many languages of young children and careful documentation of children’s thinking.