Kindergarten

Childhood is a time to wonder, to play, to imagine, and to belong.

At Cedar Springs Learning Center, our Kindergarten honors early childhood as a precious season of life.

The kindergarten classroom has a treehouse loft made from natural, twisted wood branches, featuring orange and red pillows. There are various wicker baskets and wooden furniture, giving a rustic, natural aesthetic.

Our Approach

We believe young children learn best through movement, imitation, meaningful work, imaginative play, and loving relationships. Rather than rushing children toward academics, we nurture the healthy physical, social, emotional, and imaginative capacities that allow each child to flourish and develop a lifelong love of learning.

Our mixed-age Kindergarten welcomes children and their families into a warm, home-like environment where they feel safe, known, and deeply cared for. Gentle daily and seasonal rhythms create a sense of security and belonging, while stories, songs, puppetry, artistic experiences, and time in nature kindle curiosity, joy, and imagination.

The heart of Kindergarten is creative play.

  • Close-up of a watercolor painting with pastel colors on a piece of paper, with a pink circle label that reads 'KG Lily Kindergarten'.

    Natural materials nurture imagination.

    Using simple, natural materials, children transform their surroundings through the power of their imagination while building homes, creating forests, sailing oceans, preparing feasts, and inventing entire worlds together.

  • Colorful children's drawing of outdoor scenes, including a smiling person, trees, umbrella, and various objects, placed on pink paper with yarn and knitting supplies nearby.

    Growing skills and confidence

    Through play, children naturally develop language, cooperation, problem-solving, self-regulation, and empathy while discovering the confidence that comes from their own ideas and capabilities.

  • A wooden wall with cubby shelves holding woven baskets, topped with orange paper crowns decorated with stars and hearts, and a white wall-mounted lamp on a brass arm.

    Comforting daily rhythms

    Meaningful work is woven throughout each day. Children prepare nourishing snacks alongside their teachers, sew, sand wood, care for the classroom, tend the garden, and delight in the practical rhythms of everyday life.

  • Children and adults in a garden with raised wooden garden beds, some plants growing, and a wooden fence surrounded by trees and greenery.

    Practical Life

    These purposeful activities strengthen fine and gross motor skills, coordination, perseverance, and independence while helping children experience the satisfaction of contributing to their community.

Nature and the Arts

  • Two young girls playing on a wooden treehouse with a blue slide in a wooded area.

    A Living Classroom

    Our beautiful outdoor spaces invite children to explore the natural world in every season. Daily outdoor play encourages healthy movement, sensory integration, observation, and a growing relationship with the earth.

  • A watercolor painting with soft blended colors including yellow, orange, purple, and blue, on a vertically oriented paper with rounded edges, placed on a pink surface. In the top right corner, there is a pink circular label with handwritten text reading 'K.G Lily Kindergarten'.

    The Arts of Wonder

    Inside the classroom, watercolor painting, beeswax crayon drawing, handcrafts, music, poetry, and storytelling nourish creativity and cultivate a deep sense of beauty and wonder.

Our Teachers

Our teachers create a homelike atmosphere of warmth, reverence, and respect, knowing that young children learn first through imitation. In this loving environment, children absorb not only practical skills but also kindness, gratitude, responsibility, and care for one another and for the natural world.

Smile of a happy elderly woman with curly gray hair, wearing a red blouse and earrings, outdoors with a blurred green background.


  • Lily Kindergarten, Lead Teacher

    Ms. Veronica has had a heart connection with young children since she herself was a teen. She explored lay midwifery as an assistant before moving into the field of child development. She obtained a Montessori certificate, before finding her vocation in Waldorf education. Over her 30 years of service she has been an assistant, Parent-Child teacher and lead Kindergarten teacher at the Waldorf School of San Diego. She ran a Waldorf-inspired family home daycare program and co-owned a small business, Home Grown Babies, holding doll-making, plant dyeing and crafting workshops for the community, with their littles underfoot. Ms. Veronica’s four children began their education at the Waldorf School of San Diego before they moved to the Northern California foothills, where she became Lead Kindergarten teacher at Cedar Springs. Her children all graduated from Waldorf high schools. Ms. Veronica is looking forward to continuing to serve the unique needs of the young children of today, which includes her two precious granddaughters.

Smiling elderly woman with gray hair, wearing black glasses, a colorful knit jacket, and an orange shirt, outdoors with blurred green foliage background.


  • Lily Kindergarten, Assistant

    Christl fell in love with Cedar Springs the first time she stepped onto the campus and into Ms. Veronica's Lily Kindergarten back in the winter of 2010 as an observer from the Rudolf Steiner teaching program. She's a native Southern Californian but has lived in Northern California since 2000. She graduated with a B.A. in Humanities from UC Irvine and explored various careers before finding her niche as an Early Childhood teacher at Cedar Springs, which has easily been the most gratifying work she's done. After getting her teaching certificate, she felt privileged to work as Veronica's KG assistant her first year, then moved on as the lead teacher in the Morning Glory preschool, as well as working in the Parent-Child program and 3rd Grade Handwork. She retired after the COVID school closure, but couldn't stay away... she loves being with Veronica and the children as KG Assistant in Lily Kindergarten.

A smiling woman with curly red hair wearing a gray sleeveless top outdoors with a blurred green background.


  • Rose Kindergarten, Lead Teacher

    Martie began teaching at Heart to Hands, a Waldorf initiative she founded, administrated and directed from her home in Reno, which is now Nevada Sage Waldorf School. She made a move to Oregon, where she completed training at The West Coast Institute for Anthroposophy. Her teaching experience includes Swallowtail, Camellia and Nevada Sage Waldorf schools. 

Close-up of a young woman with long, wavy brown hair and blue eyes smiling outdoors against a blurred green background.


  • Rose Kindergarten, Assistant

    Autumn is a true local; she was born and raised in El Dorado County and is raising her young family here. Helping and caring for people was something Autumn had always wanted to do from childhood. She was planning a nursing career until the birth of her first son when she decided she wanted to stay closer to him while he was young. She became a licensed Massage Therapist and worked in that field for many years. She and her mother came to Parent-Child classes at Cedar Springs Waldorf School when she was very young, and she still has a warm memory of her first Festival here. When she became a mother she knew that’s where she wanted her children to attend. She enjoys the collaborative, nature-based way our learning center nurtures the children.

At Cedar Springs, we believe the greatest gift we can offer young children is a joyful childhood—one filled with imagination, meaningful work, healthy movement, and loving relationships.

These experiences awaken curiosity, strengthen the will, nurture compassionate hearts, and prepare children to step into the grades with confidence, enthusiasm, and a deep sense of belonging.