Acorn Hill School Inc

Visit Acorn Hill Waldorf Kindergarten & Nursery and experience first hand its extraordinary spirit! Acorn Hill is devoted to providing quality programs to meet the physical, social-emotional, and mental developmental needs young children using integrated and age appropriate methods. Established in 1964, we have occupied our present, natural wooded site off Sligo Creek in Silver Spring, Maryland since 1977. We are a kindergarten licensed by the Maryland Board of Education and a pre-school licensed by the Maryland Child Care Administration. Acorn Hill School, Inc., d/b/a Acorn Hill Waldorf Kindergarten & Nursery, is a non-profit organization under Section 501(C)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

Our morning and full-day programs are designed for children three to six with parent-child classes for infants, toddlers and two and three year olds. We surround our children with simple experiences that teach the world in a gentle way by letting them do things directly themselves, trusting their innate stages of growth and guarding them from sensory overload. Children are served natural, nutritious snacks and enjoy a daily rhythm of activities including free indoor and outdoor play, songs, stories, puppet plays, and other tasks such as beeswax modeling, baking, gardening, handwork or sewing, water-color painting, wood-working, and seasonal crafts.

We are a small school of dedicated educators with more than 100 years of Waldorf teaching between us. Many of us are committed parents whose children attended Acorn Hill. We saw wonderful changes in our children and loved it so much we stayed on to teach or assist! All our teachers are certified in Waldorf Early Childhood Education. We are a faculty-administered school whose work is supported by our parents and our Board of Directors.

Acorn Hill, like all Waldorf schools, relies on a strong sense of community to sustain the school. We endeavor to make Acorn Hill reflective of the rich diversity of our area and attendance within reach of all families irrespective of financial resources. Parents, faculty and board, through commitment and volunteerism, play a crucial role in Acorn Hill’s on-going vitality, generating support and a warm social forum while sharing resources and gaining valuable experiences; an education for both children and adults. Caring and respect lay the groundwork for communication and mutual feedback between faculty and parents about our program philosophies and their children and for assuming responsibilities for school functions, fundraising, outreach events, and other undertakings.