At Germantown Academy, the faculty and staff cultivates a growth mindset so the youngest students can build the knowledge, skills, work habits, and character traits to become creative problem solvers, clear communicators, and successful collaborators.

Purposeful Play

Play develops healthy social interactions, problem-solving skills, creativity, and self confidence. Germantown Academy’s PreK Play Workshop engages the youngest Patriots in open-ended play experiences that build foundational literacy and math skills in four exciting classroom spaces – Makerspace, World of Wonder, Storyteller’s Café, and the Pretend Village.

Community Members

Second graders study the nearby Ambler community, learning how residents’ wants and needs are met through the community. Students make several trips to Ambler to meet business owners and interview the mayor. The unit culminates when students create interactive maps and videos to teach others about the community, and join in a community service project at the Ambler Food Cupboard.

Tinker Lab

The newest space on campus, the Tinker Lab, engages the youngest learners in multisensory learning by providing materials that encourage creativity, collaboration, and creative problem-solving.  A woodworking area with real tools, cooking equipment, a LEGO wall, and natural building materials combined with digital opportunities to design and create on a 3D printer all help prepare students for a 21st century environment.

Design Days

Can a day devoted to collaboration in mixed age groups to develop problem-solving strategies involving questions pertaining to social and emotional learning be successful? Teachers at Germantown Academy say yes! Although the design thinking process is no foreign concept to the business world, their youngest students can harness concrete ideas to generate an end result—one that is critical to helping them build foundations for lifelong learning and responsible living in an ever changing world.

Photographs provided by Germantown Academy.