The Melrose School is Unique:
Our village is our playground: At The Melrose School, the community is an extension to our classroom. The Melrose School is located just off Auburndale square, which gives the children walking access to our extended classroom. Rather than being stuck in the same fenced-in backyard or playground day after day, the children at The Melrose School get to explore the valuable resources found within our neighborhood during our outdoor walks. Trips to the post office, the bakery, the bank, the dentist, the local diner, the train depot, and the grocery store are weaved into our curriculum in a very hands-on approach to learning.
Community Room
The Melrose School has an empty room we call the “Community Room”. Our community room transforms into a themed dramatic play space. For instance, after a few trips to the grocery store and team work in mixed-age activities, our newly transformed community room becomes a market, and we learn about proper nutrition, color sorting of produce, weighing, counting, adding and subtracting, list-making, temperature sensing –cold, hot, and warm— and much more. It's a hands-on learning experience disguised as play!
Learning is fun!
Imagine how much fun learning becomes when your child visits the post office, then comes back to school to spend time with friends planning, paint, building, and creating a shared post office of their own. Your child will develop an interest in learning to read and write when their teacher and friends "mail" them letters (or by drawing a letter depending on their developmental stage). It’s fun to learn how to use a ruler to measure boxes and use a scale to see which package weighs more. Toddlers love to sort bright colored envelopes and different shape packages, then “stamp” them with ink pad stampers and stickers. Let’s see how many packages we can put in our carrier’s bag!
Our learning kitchen
The Melrose School is a family care center. This means that the children get to eat family style, all together. Just like a family, we treat mealtimes as a special time for growth where we talk about our day and lend advice to each other. Menus, discussions, and stories read at the table are incorporated into the curriculum.
Having a kitchen incorporated into a child's classroom provides a multi-sensory learning event. Children see, hear, feel, smell and taste lunch as it is being made. The Melrose child gets to help with cooking, setting the table, scraping and washing dishes after each meal. These are practical life skills that will help both child and parents for years to come.
You get the picture. The Melrose School is unlike any other school around. It’s small, creative, personalized, academically directed and fun.