Kinhaven School, a member-governed, independent preschool, provides a rich community of involved families, highly educated teaching professionals and school staff. Kinhaven School's unique model harnesses the professional expertise of our experienced faculty along with the power generated by our membership organization to offer families a wonderful opportunity to influence their children’s early education.
In our part-time program, children "learn through play." This approach places great emphasis and faith in the intelligence and ability of young children. It particularly addresses each child’s thirst for understanding him or herself and his or her relation to others in the surrounding environment. Themes and experiences are designed to stimulate each child’s individual cognitive, physical, social and emotional growth. Each teacher plans and implements a developmentally appropriate curriculum in response to the needs and interests of the children.
The “Learning through Play” philosophy works best in an environment with low child-teacher ratios. Low ratios allow for adults to provide nurturing guidance and encouragement. Time is allowed for children to move from one stage of discovery to the next at their natural rate of development. Age appropriate activities promote sensorimotor integration. In addition, Kinhaven children receive guidance in developing language patterns necessary to the assimilation of their experiences. We embrace the belief that language development is exciting and is made more so by being combined with exploration. Kinhaven School subscribes to the development of the “whole child” and is attentive to a constant monitoring and provision for this development. Finally, Kinhaven strongly believes that parents are the first and most important educators of children. To this end, members participate actively in the strengthening of parental roles and subsequently the strengthening of Kinhaven.
Kinhaven has been serving our community’s children since 1971 and is a non-profit educational organization licensed by Arlington County and the Commonwealth of Virginia. While our facility is leased from a church, we are not affiliated with the church. We are a non-denominational, independent school that accepts children of all racial, religious, cultural, and social backgrounds.