The Nest, Wheeler’s new preschool, to open Fall 2021
January 22, 2021
The Wheeler School is excited to announce a new early learning program, The Nest At Wheeler School, opening in September 2021.
An imaginative program providing a nature-based emergent curriculum for children ages 2 years 9 months through 5 years old has been developed at The Wheeler School and will be located at our brand new early childhood classrooms at the Wheeler Farm Campus in Seekonk, MA. Families will find experienced teachers, a unique, natural setting, and an affordable program with a flexible schedule today’s families need.
The Nest at Wheeler provides an early childhood education that meets the developmental needs of each child through joyful, hands-on, experiential learning in the natural world. Our nature-based curriculum integrates academics and social-emotional skills and inspires a love of learning and connection to the natural world.
Why create this new program now?
Wheeler’s Early Childhood teachers have used the 120-acre fields and woodlands of the Wheeler Farm to inform their curriculum for several years through Forest and Farm Days. That program proved successful for both students and families who appreciated its inquiry-based learning, mindful moments, observations of nature, and fun playing and exploring. Our move to the Farm Campus this year to provide outdoor and physical distance risk-mitigation during the pandemic created even more opportunities for our educators and our students to advance exponentially in what is possible for young children at the beginning of their educational journey. The program also aligns with Wheeler’s Campus Master Plan which as recently as 2019 featured an early learning center on the Farm campus. So, while the pandemic has brought many (more than many!) hardships, the opportunity to bring our vision of an early learning center at the Farm to life sooner than we thought possible is one opportunity that we do not want to miss.
What does the Nest program offer?
The Nest will be a flexible-days pre-school for our youngest students using Wheeler’s successful, established early childhood curriculum. The planning and execution of this new effort is a partnership between Wheeler’s Lower School with its early education expertise and our Auxiliary Programs’ entrepreneurial focus. The program will offer more scheduling options for families who need flexibility, ranging from fewer than five days a week and half days to all-day care, all at the level of quality of Wheeler early childhood programming. In addition, we are very pleased that we are able to offer this quality of curriculum, facility, and faculty expertise at a more affordable price for families, as well.
We congratulate the team of educators and administrators who have put this vision into action — Gary Esposito, Operations Director, Bob Rojee, Auxiliary Programs Director, Felicia Vinces, Lower School Director, and Michelle Dolan, Early Childhood Curriculum Coordinator and Nursery teacher. As Gary told our Wheeler Board of Trustees when we gained their approval this month, this is the culmination of Mary Wheeler’s vision when she purchased the Farm property in 1912 to offer a balance of urban and rural settings to provide a complete educational environment for students.
To learn more now visit The Nest website or contact Danielle Levya.
(photos below taken pre-pandemic)
