Since 2016, Wildflower School has created community with families throughout Orange, Durham and Chatham counties. You'd be hard-pressed to find a school as unique as Wildflower!
We create our day in our 1800 square foot shipping container school, spending much of our time romping through our 16-acre farm and forest, feeding the bunnies, chickens, goats and donkeys, climbing trees and boulders, making art in the Art Studio and MakerSpace, investigating science both indoors and out, creating lunch for each other during Children's Coookery and more!
Our teachers are career educators and professionals who hold at least a bachelor's degree. Amongst our staff are certified yoga instructors, ukelele experts and an artist!
Learn more about the Wildflower School at Belle Vie Farm! Call or email Shelley for a tour. Enrollment now open for the 2021/22 school year for kindergarten and preschool.
Quick facts about Wildflower
Our school week is Monday-Friday 8:30am-12:30pm
Student-teacher ratio is 7:1
We accept students ages 2-4 1/2 in our preschool and students ages
4 1/2-6 in our kindergarten
We do not require toilet training by a particular age
Preschool classes are mixed-age
Our rates are reasonable and we offer some scholarships
"The wider the range of possibilities we offer children, the more intense will be their motivations and the richer their experiences. We must widen the range of topics and goals, the types of situations we offer and their degree of structure, the kinds and combinations of resources and materials, and the possible interactions with things, peers, and adults."
-Loris Malaguzzi
 How can we know our faces unless we study them? How can we understand our movements fully unless we can watch them happen? Mirrors allow children to get a perspective on themselves that they otherwise would not see. |  When a stick is not a stick, but a train, alligator, space rocket and more...all in one day! Children greet this world with their own ideas and theories about how things work and why they exist. Allow them to express their rich ideas and they will grow into precisely who they are. |  Caring for animals is just one of the many ways children express their understanding of the world. |
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 Every month, we host Parent Collaboration Night. This is a gathering for parents and teachers to reflect on and discuss the children's explorations. Dinner, wine and slide show documentation help make this a community-building event! |  Light, literacy and magnifying glasses! What more could anyone want to explore a small dot of the universe, especially with a friend alongside to share discoveries? |  Engineering, construction and a little transparency go a long way toward helping children understand how we adults have built our towns and cities, houses and schools. |
 Children's dialogues with light and shadow are one of the most satisfying to observe. They rightly perceive the magic of light's effect on ordinary objects and revel in that beauty. |  October brings our Potluck Beewax Candle Dipping Gathering. Families gather together to share food and dip beeswax candles with their children. |  Every other week, families gather before the school day begins to enjoy breakfast provided by the preschool. Oatmeal, egg muffins, cheese grits and bagels are some of our morning delights! |
 Experiencing life in community is essential for human development. We encourage children to be ladies and gentlemen at our gatherings and then allow their conversation, story and joke telling and bonding. This is a space in which adult interaction fades into the background. |  Working in the garden is a powerful creative experience for the children. From seed to tomato, the children experience their own capacity for creating as well as the responsibility of caring for something. |  Many people think that Reggio Emilia schools are art schools. RE schools are expression schools and support children in expressing their passion for the world in the child's own languages...the one hundred languages of children. |
 Literacy is a lifelong endeavor and is no longer "gifted" to children by their teachers. Literacy is, in part, a self-directed interaction with the world that results in a deeper, richer understanding of life. |  Wildflower Learning Community invites children throughout the day to gather, sing, story tell and talk. These are spontaneous gatherings and are never forced "circle times". Children never need to be forced to gather together in joy! |  The physics of balance and stability, inclines and speed are investigations children relish. No need to force science: the desire to explore the world is inherent in every child. |
 Rhythm play and music making outdoors allows children to march to their own drumbeat as loudly as they desire! What better way to speak than the language of song? |  The best way to know nature is to dig right in! Children who interact with their world develop a relationship with the environment which is rich and meaningful. |  Constructing with various materials and loose parts allows children to express their ideas about engineering and design. |
 Baking together is a creative endeavor and also a great way to practice cooperation. |