Curriculum

Our art curriculum is process-oriented, weaving in art historical foundations from the very beginning. Studio time strikes a balance between structured, guided lessons and open-ended exploration. During free-choice periods, students engage with a variety of media—painting, drawing, and sculpting with playdough or found objects. Each week, children discover new ways of making through learning about diverse, underrepresented, and local artists. By mastering the basic elements and principles of art at an early age, students gain the vocabulary and technical skills that carry into the rest of their education. These studies also help students sharpen their fine motor skills and build confidence in their creative decision-making.

In this lesson, students explored the concepts of pattern and repetition, inspired by the work of Japanese-American Modernist Ruth Asawa. After studying Asawa’s iconic use of repeated forms, the class created their own rhythmic interpretations using rubber stamps and intentional color palettes to bring their ideas to life.

Our literacy curriculum follows a "steady slope" approach, balancing intentional play with formal frameworks such as the Reader’s and Writer’s Workshop. To ensure a seamless transition into the Lower School, we back-map our curriculum so students are already comfortable with the academic language and tactile tools they will encounter in later grades.

The journey begins with phonemic awareness and "word work" that focuses on rhyming and letter sounds. Before ever picking up a pencil, children build essential fine motor skills through "printing training"—forming shapes and letters in sand, with Play-Doh, and using wooden pieces. This systematic progression from simple curves to complex diagonal lines ensures that by Kindergarten, students are confident and ready to start learning reading and writing.

Our math program begins with deep number sense—understanding how numbers fit together rather than just memorizing facts. By aligning our curriculum with the Lower School, we ensure our youngest learners become fluent in the same mathematical language and tools they will use for years to come.

Using a Math Workshop model, children engage in "guided play" with specialized manipulatives like five-frames and Rekenreks. These tools help students move beyond basic counting to subitizing—the ability to recognize and compose groups of numbers instantly. This intentional foundation ensures that when students move up to Kindergarten, they are already confident in explaining their mathematical thinking and can approach problem-solving from multiple angles.

Take a peek inside one of our PreK classrooms during “Snack Shop,” an interactive weekly lesson that turns snack time into a hands-on math adventure. Through this lesson, students begin mastering early math concepts, such as one-to-one counting and basic subtraction.

Movement classes focus on developing children’s locomotion, balance, and "sense of self in space." Through high-energy, age-appropriate activities—including yoga, dance, parachute play, and custom obstacle courses—students build motor skills and core strength necessary for a lifetime of regular physical activity.

This curriculum is a natural extension of our "guided play" philosophy. In learning these skills, students foster the same resilience and spatial awareness necessary for success in the classroom. Movement classes help our youngest learners develop a positive attitude toward wellness while ensuring their physical coordination keeps pace with their academic growth.

In Corinne Robkin's movement classes, students build bodily awareness, emotional regulation, and confidence through structured activities that celebrate physical expression. Corinne shares, “When kids come into the movement studio, my focus is to help them experience the joy of being in their bodies—to express, connect, and communicate through movement.”

Music is an immersive, multi-sensory experience where children explore instrumental melodies, song, and rhythm through active participation. Following our "guided play" philosophy, students learn the fundamentals of tempo and expression by singing, dancing, and playing a variety of instruments. 

These sessions are designed to be both joyful and foundational. By experimenting with sound and movement, children develop the auditory and rhythmic skills that support early literacy and mathematical thinking. This intentional approach ensures that music is part of the "steady slope" of development, fostering a positive attitude toward creative expression and a lifetime of musical appreciation.

As a Quaker school, Meeting for Worship is a practice for every GFS student—even our littlest learners. In Early Childhood, children attend Meeting for Worship weekly on their respective campuses. In addition, students from both locations gather together once a month in the historic Meetinghouse on Main Campus. The classes come together to share a story or poem, then sit quietly and reflect on the message of the reading for a few minutes. Children may share their thoughts with the group if they are so moved. Each Meeting is closed by shaking hands.

To learn more about GFS’ approach to Quaker education, watch this roundtable discussion between Head of School Dana Weeks and five teachers who are deeply engaged with Quakerism.

When our Main Campus preschoolers visited the Early Childhood Center City campus, everyone gathered for Meeting for Worship on a comfy rug, listening to the book Maybe Something Beautiful read by teacher Shar. Afterwards, they sat in a five-minute silence, a skill they build over time, contemplating a query about how they might help bring beauty to their own communities.

Eager to explore the world around them, children are natural scientists! Our Early Childhood curriculum fosters this inherent curiosity through a blend of spontaneous nature observations and planned, hands-on experiments. Students are introduced to basic physics and chemistry concepts—such as sinking and floating or freezing and melting—and dive into early engineering through the use of blocks, weights, and pulleys. These activities are intentionally designed as "guided play," where teachers provide materials that encourage students to ask questions, test hypotheses, and solve problems. Children develop the fine motor skills, spatial awareness, and "intellectual integrity" required for the rigorous laboratory science and engineering programs in the GFS Middle and Upper Schools.

Hands-on learning starts early! Each spring, PreK students in Bianca Desamour's class dive into a robotics project as part of their engineering unit. Using salvaged materials, each child designs and builds a robot prototype to solve a real-world problem, like a dinner-making chef bot or a city help bot that cleans up litter.