Abiding Heart's Kindergarten Curriculum
The following Abiding Heart’s Meditation and Contemplative Kindergarten Curriculum is designed for all communities. This curriculum rests on the view of interdependence, universal ethics, meditation, experiential contemplation, and loving kindness and compassion experiences.
Rhythms
Our Meditation and Contemplative Kindergarten curriculum follows the rhythm of the seasons, wilderness and farming year. Local heritage and cultural celebrations are also an important part of our kindergarten approach. In this way, we co-construct a physical, emotional and social environment for young children to flourish and learn in a way that respects and honours their developmental phase. We do this through our play based curriculum where children learn through imitation and caring adults who serve as role models to nurture gratitude, reverence, love, kindness and compassion in children. Naturally, our pedagogical approach to learning in kindergarten is different than the one we have for primary. We designed a curriculum where teaching and learning happens indirectly with a strong focus on children learning through play, imagination and being.
Awe, Wonder and Reverence Filled Kindergarten Curriculum
• Contemplative Ecology and Nature Studies linked with the seasons: spring, summer, autumn, winter; wilderness; following the rhythm of nature: seasons; weather; the farming year • Local Heritage and other cultural festivals from other traditions to expose children to diversity • Celebrating children’s birthday using our unique Experiential Contemplative style; • Celebrating auspicious days and auspicious events; • Daily offerings and rituals • Meditation with young children: Developmentally appropriate meditation, mindfulness and contemplative practices; • Universal ethics and view of the young child: Impermanence, law of causality, interdependence, loving kindness and compassion, non violence, innate goodness, love, joy, compassion and equanimity • Contemplative stories • Contemplative circle time • Language teaching and learning (native language and additional languages): the bilingual/trilingual classroom • Storytelling: Folk tales and fairy tales from around the world; Nature stories • People at work • Arts and crafts with young children • Cultural arts and crafts • Cooking with young children • Gardening with young children • Treading lightly on the earth: Contemplative ecology
Curriculum Delivery
Educating the will: forming positive habits and inner experiences. • Washing children’s face and hands • Free play • Circle time • Story time • Learning to speak an additional language, i.e., English or Spanish (individual and group activities) • Individual group learnings activities (pre-literacy and pre-numeracy), • Daily rituals and meditation with children • Arts and crafts activities • Outdoor play • Gardening • Cooking and baking • Storytelling • Celebrating Festivals • Meditation • Art • Craft • Recitation, Mantras, Rituals • Songs, and playing musical instruments • Verses and Poems recitations • Languages learning • Teachers being role models: ° Being a role model ° Reverence, awe, wonder ° Gratitude ° Generosity ° Holding the view of Interdependency, Impermanence, law of causality, innate goodness, and all encompassing compassion ° Set motivation motivation, intention and aspiration ° Breathing in and out ° Classroom management ° Staying in awareness; holding the class in awareness ° Morning and evening mediation and contemplation practice for teachers ° Teachers hold the view and practising teaching from the understanding of Child Development and contemplative human development: ° Sowing seeds of re connecting with our innate basic goodness ° Healing: from unhealthy self towards a healthy sense of self ° Cause end effect ° Precious human life ° Impermanence ° Interdependence
Abiding Heart's Meditation and Contemplative Kindergarten Curriculum
The Abiding Heart's curriculum is holistic and localised, taking into consideration diversity and inclusivity and social justice in the design of the whole approach. It is not possible to have a curriculum that fits the needs of all school communities around the world and it shouldn't be as in any case it wouldn't be as effective in fulfilling the aim and motivation behind Abiding Heart Education. Our curriculum is designed in such a way that certain areas of the curriculum can be adjusted and specific content designed and created to meet the specific needs of the community using this curriculum. The following sections in the curriculum are designed to be flexible to slot in the following areas: 1. The curriculum must include the geo-socio cultural, climate, environment of the region this curriculum is to be implemented. This includes traditional cultural knowledge that is processed through a sustainability paradigm that rests on contemplative ecology. 2. The curriculum must include the specific tradition that the community is connected to. In the Abiding Heart's teacher training, the trainees learn to use our pedagogical indication and curriculum and design specific content to their tradition. Having said that, the Abiding Heart's curriculum includes a strong and stable universal foundational curriculum that is suitable for all traditions. 3. Identify the language of instruction that the curriculum be taught and translate all resources to that language. It is advisable that the native language be the main language of instructions. Other languages are then introduced as additional languages and or as a bilingual class. 4. The contemplative curriculum is adjusted to be working from the contemplative tradition paradigm, epistemology and methodology but using the particular community, spiritual, cultural and traditional knowledge heritage.
Abiding Heart's Meditation and Contemplative Kindergarten Curriculum
The Contemplative Year
At the heart of our Contemplative Year curriculum is experiential Contemplative learning. Teachers teach the content of the Contemplative Year curriculum using the teaching and learning methodology of Abiding Heart Education. There are three sections to the curriculum which interweave: The Contemplative year curriculum: our teacher trainees spend too years learning to understand and meditate on some of the practices the curriculum is based on, The Abiding Heart approach is designed to develop a bespoke curriculum content relevant to a specific tradition.
Nature's Year
• Winter • Spring • Summer • Autumn
Own Tradition Content
• Offerings ans rituals • Auspicious Days • Festivals
The Festivals Year
• Local festivals • Festivals celebrated by the families of the children attending the class • Festivals from around the world
The Rhythm of a Day in an Abiding Heart Kindergarten
The Rhythm of a Day in an Abiding Heart Kindergarten
• Washing (additional language/mother tongue) sometimes additional language and sometimes mother tongue 3 days English 2 days mother tongue • A Moment of Awe and Wonder (mother tongue) • Additional Language circle • Free play • Art/Craft activities • Cooking • Individual learning 15 minutes (3 days conversation – oral additional language and pre-numeracy in additional language) small groups of up to 3 children. (mother tongue 2 days) (optional) • Cleaning/Toilet Songs in additional language • Circle (mother tongue) • Lunch (additional language/mother tongue) • Outdoor play additional language • Toilet/washing time • Story (mother tongue) • Reading time • Nap (additional language/mother tongue) English nursery rhymes; • Mother tongue • Oral additional language learning and play (optional) • Pre-literacy and pre-numeracy (optional) • Snack • Meditation practice • Closing Circle additional language and mother tongue
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