Relationships first
Feel safe, known, and connected.
Our Philosophy
See the child. Listen closely. Build from there.
Warm relationships, purposeful play, inquiry, and creative expression help children grow as capable learners. Educators build on each child’s strengths and interests, with clear developmental goals.
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At Wrencrest, we believe children arrive ready to connect, question, create, explore, and contribute.
Our educational philosophy combines warm relationships, purposeful play, inquiry, creative expression, thoughtfully designed environments, and responsive teaching. Educators get to know each child, their strengths, interests, culture, relationships, and ways of communicating, and use that knowledge to create meaningful opportunities for growth.
Our View of the Child
Children are capable, curious learners from the beginning.
We build on every child’s strengths through relationships, meaningful play, many forms of expression, and responsive teaching.
Purposeful play
Test ideas and solve problems.
Many ways to learn
Speak, draw, build, move, and sing.
Responsive teaching
Combine careful observation with clear learning goals.
What children can count on
Known as an individual
We plan around who your child already is — their relationships, strengths, interests, and how they express themselves.
Encouraged to ask questions
Every question gets room to grow — through projects, conversation, play, and hands-on investigation.
Free to express ideas
Kids don’t just talk about ideas — they draw them, build them, move them, and turn them into music and stories.
Supported in relationships and community
Kids learn to share, empathize, stand up for what’s fair, and bounce back from hard moments — every single day.
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Young children are already observing, wondering, communicating, building relationships, testing ideas, solving problems, and making meaning from the world around them.
Each child brings strengths, experiences, cultural knowledge, ideas, and unique ways of participating to the classroom.
We notice those capabilities, nurture them, and create conditions in which they can grow.
Four ideas guide our work.
01
Relationships come first.
Children learn best when they feel safe, known, loved, and connected. Strong relationships with educators, peers, families, and community provide the foundation for exploration and growth.
02
Play carries serious thinking.
Through meaningful play, children develop language, test theories, negotiate roles, solve problems, practice self-regulation, take perspectives, and turn imagination into understanding.
03
Children learn in many ways.
An idea can be spoken, drawn, built, moved, counted, acted out, investigated, or sung. Children need multiple ways to explore ideas and demonstrate what they understand.
04
Teaching is purposeful and responsive.
Educators bring professional knowledge and clear learning goals while paying close attention to what children say, do, wonder about, and need next.
Our Educational Framework
Research-informed, Reggio-inspired, and centered on the whole child.
Children investigate questions, express ideas in different ways, and practice independence with support. Reggio Emilia and Montessori traditions inform our broader, research-informed framework.
Inquiry
Children’s questions begin deeper investigations.
Expression
Ideas grow through art, movement, stories, and construction.
Independence
Reachable materials and practical routines support participation.
Wrencrest does not claim certified Reggio Emilia or Montessori status or complete implementation of either approach.
Our framework in practice
Relationships first
When kids trust the adults around them, they explore more, speak up more, and take the kind of risks that lead to real growth.
Inquiry with intention
We listen to what kids are curious about, then build activities that turn that curiosity into real learning.
Learning made visible
Photos, notes, and your child’s own words help us — and you — see exactly how they’re growing, and what’s next.
Read more about our influences
Wrencrest’s educational framework is informed by current early childhood research and inspired by ideas and practices from the Reggio Emilia and Montessori traditions.
Reggio-inspired inquiry
Children's questions, interests, conversations, and discoveries can become starting points for deeper investigation.
Educators listen for ideas worth pursuing and connect them with meaningful opportunities in language, literacy, mathematics, science, social-emotional development, movement, the arts, and other areas of learning.
Children help influence the direction of an investigation. Educators remain responsible for ensuring appropriate breadth, challenge, safety, access, and developmental goals.
Many ways to think and communicate
Children often understand an idea more deeply when they encounter it in different forms.
They might draw an observation, construct a model, dictate a story, measure an object, move their bodies, create music, work with clay, or revisit an idea through dramatic play.
Creative expression helps young children think, communicate, and learn.
Independence with support
Wrencrest also draws from Montessori-inspired practices that encourage meaningful independence and the nurturance of the soul and heart of the child. We take inspiration from Montessori’s philosophy that the child has an inner guiding light or life (a soul) propelling their development which requires adults to be responsive and to create the ideal environment within which the child can take initiative and pursue independence and self-regulation. This approach means that the child is born with innate qualities and capacities that need nurturance to flourish.
Children encounter reachable materials, orderly environments, purposeful choices, practical routines, opportunities to care for themselves, and age-appropriate responsibility for shared spaces.
The goal is not independence for its own sake, but a growing sense of:
“I can take part. I can try. I can help.”
Wrencrest does not present itself as a certified Reggio Emilia or Montessori program or claim complete implementation of either approach. These traditions help inform a broader framework designed specifically for the children and families we serve.
How Learning Happens
Playful does not mean unplanned.
Educators notice what children are exploring, plan a thoughtful next step, and return to their ideas as understanding grows.
Notice
Begin with what the child is showing us.
Educators pay close attention to children's words, gestures, questions, relationships, strategies, repeated interests, and moments of uncertainty.
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Educators create rich conditions for learning: trusted relationships, interesting materials, time to investigate, meaningful conversation, and challenges that extend children's thinking.
Planning is intentional, but it is also flexible. What a child does next provides information about what the educator might offer next.
Learning therefore becomes a continuing conversation between children, educators, materials, environments, and ideas.
A Connected, Whole-Child Curriculum
Areas of development grow together.
A single block project can connect mathematics, language, creativity, coordination, and collaboration. Explore the areas of development we support together.
Relationships & Emotional GrowthTrust, feelings, and self-regulation
Children build trusting relationships, recognize and communicate feelings, navigate conflict, recover from difficulty, develop self-regulation, and learn how to participate in a group.
Language & LiteracyConversation, stories, and early writing
Conversation, books, storytelling, songs, dramatic play, drawing, mark-making, and early writing help children communicate and make meaning.
Mathematical ThinkingQuantity, pattern, and measurement
Children encounter quantity, pattern, shape, measurement, sequence, comparison, spatial relationships, and early mathematical reasoning through play, routines, construction, and investigation.
Science & the Natural WorldObserve, test, and investigate
Children observe, predict, test, compare, collect, classify, ask questions, care for living things, and investigate how the world works.
Creative ExpressionArt, music, movement, and imagination
Drawing, painting, clay, music, movement, construction, dramatic play, and storytelling provide different ways to develop, represent, and communicate ideas.
Physical DevelopmentCoordination, movement, and well-being
Daily movement, outdoor experiences, self-care routines, and hands-on work support coordination, strength, body awareness, confidence, and physical well-being.
Identity & CommunityRespect, empathy, and belonging
Children encounter classrooms in which their families, identities, and cultures are respected while developing empathy, fairness, responsibility, cooperation, and a sense of belonging.
Approaches to LearningCuriosity, persistence, and flexible thinking
Curiosity, initiative, concentration, flexible thinking, persistence, problem-solving, reflection, and willingness to try grow through meaningful challenges.
Select an area to see how it connects with everyday learning.
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Young children do not experience learning as a collection of separate school subjects.
Building a bridge with blocks, for example, can involve mathematics, language, engineering, collaboration, physical coordination, creativity, persistence, and problem-solving at the same time.
Wrencrest therefore approaches curriculum as interconnected while intentionally supporting development across important domains.
The Environment as a Teacher
Spaces communicate what children are trusted to do.
Reachable materials, purposeful choices, and space for movement or quiet work help children participate with confidence.
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At Wrencrest, the classroom environment is part of the educational experience.
Thoughtfully arranged spaces invite children to make choices, find materials, collaborate, concentrate, investigate, create, move, rest, and participate in the life of the classroom.
Materials children can understand and use
Books, tools, natural materials, art media, construction pieces, objects for investigation, and everyday materials are organized so children can see possibilities and increasingly use them independently.
Ideas that can travel
Learning does not have to remain in one classroom “center.” An idea that begins with a book might move into drawing, dramatic play, construction, music, nature exploration, mathematics, or a group investigation.
Room for different rhythms
Children need different kinds of spaces at different moments. Environments should support energetic movement, collaboration, focused individual work, conversation, care routines, quiet reflection, rest, and emotional regulation.
The Role of the Educator
Teaching begins with attention.
Educators balance children’s initiative with purposeful teaching: observing, listening, designing experiences, and reflecting on learning.
Observe
Notice strategies, strengths, relationships, and interests.
Listen
Take children’s questions, experiences, and theories seriously.
Design
Shape materials, routines, questions, and experiences with intention.
Reflect
Review evidence with colleagues and families, then adjust plans.
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Wrencrest educators are active participants in children's learning, but their role is not simply to deliver information.
They observe, listen, question, design, support, document, and reflect.
As observers, educators notice children's strategies, interests, relationships, strengths, and current ways of participating.
As listeners, they take children's questions, experiences, and theories seriously.
As designers, they thoughtfully shape time, spaces, materials, routines, questions, experiences, and groupings.
As reflective practitioners, they examine evidence of children's learning, collaborate with colleagues and families, and adjust plans based on what they observe.
This creates a balance between child agency and strong professional teaching.
Learning in Action
A fallen nest can become much more than a nature lesson.
A fallen nest discovered on a neighborhood walk can open a shared investigation across science, language, mathematics, art, and movement.
Discovery
Children find a fallen nest.
Questions
How was it built? What holds it together?
Investigation
Draw, compare, count, build, and test natural materials.
Reflection
Revisit photographs, words, and changing theories together.
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Imagine children discovering a fallen bird's nest during a neighborhood walk.
They begin asking questions:
How did the bird build it? What holds it together? What was it made from? Who lived there?
The educator notices their curiosity and brings the investigation back into the classroom.
Children examine natural materials. They draw the nest. They compare sticks and fibers. They count materials. They construct their own nests. They tell stories about birds. They test which materials bend or break. They move like birds, examine local species, and discuss habitats.
Educators document children's words, photographs, constructions, drawings, questions, and changing theories.
One discovery has now opened opportunities for science, mathematics, language, literacy, art, movement, collaboration, engineering, and care for the natural world.
The project might eventually move in another direction—to weather, local birds, habitats, architecture, or caring for neighborhood nature.
That is what inquiry can look like at Wrencrest: children's curiosity provides a meaningful beginning, and skillful educators help it grow.
Social-Emotional Life, Character & Community
Learning how to be yourself—with other people.
Children practice understanding feelings, navigating disagreements, caring for others, and contributing to a shared community.
Emotional literacy
Children develop language for feelings, needs, boundaries, calming strategies, conflict, and repair.
Character in action
Qualities such as kindness, courage, fairness, responsibility, honesty, empathy, and care are explored through real situations and everyday choices rather than treated only as abstract lessons.
Belonging
Children should see their identities, families, experiences, and cultures treated with respect and learn that communities can make room for different abilities, perspectives, and strengths.
Shared responsibility
Age-appropriate classroom roles, routines, choices, and responsibilities allow children to experience themselves as meaningful contributors to their community.
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Academic learning is only one part of early childhood.
Children are also learning how to understand themselves, communicate their needs, live with others, solve disagreements, contribute to a community, and make choices that affect other people.
Making Learning Visible
The process matters as much as the product.
Children’s words, photographs, drawings, and models reveal how their thinking changes—not just what they made.
For children
Revisit experiences and recognize how ideas have changed.
For educators
Understand thinking and plan meaningful next steps.
For families
See what your child is investigating, practicing, and learning.
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A finished painting or construction tells only part of the story.
Learning documentation can bring together children's words, photographs, drawings, models, observations, questions, and educator reflection to show how thinking develops over time.
Documentation helps children revisit experiences and recognize how their ideas have changed.
It helps educators understand children's thinking and plan meaningful next steps.
And it helps families see not only what their child made, but what their child was investigating, practicing, wondering about, and learning.
Standards and Professional Foundations
Responsive to children. Grounded in professional knowledge.
Our developing curriculum draws on early childhood research, recognized guidance, and Pennsylvania’s age-appropriate learning standards.
Read about standards and opening preparations
Wrencrest is developing its curriculum with reference to recognized early childhood guidance, current research, and Pennsylvania's age-appropriate learning standards.
Developmental goals and standards help educators maintain appropriate breadth and intentionality while recognizing that children may reach those goals in different ways and at different rates.
As Wrencrest prepares to open, final curriculum selections, licensing requirements, quality-rating participation, accreditation pathways, and any formal partnerships will be announced after decisions and approvals are complete.
Founding Families
A thoughtful education begins with a real relationship.
Every child's learning journey is different. Our work begins by getting to know the child in front of us—and building from there.