VCFC programs reflect the research-based understanding that play is essential to children’s health and well-being, and foundational to children’s learning. VCFC supports children to create their own knowledge through hands-on experiences and child-initiated play.
The Acorn School is a Reggio-inspired early childhood care and education program. Through primary relationships, shared language and concepts become the tools that children use to absorb social practices and construct their understanding of themselves and their community. The Acorn School perceives every child as an artist and scientist, capable and competent. Teachers provide encouragement, nurture, protection, security, stimulation, and supervision to children. The Acorn School is a nature-based program that encourages children’s wonder and discovery as they explore the Vanderbilt arboretum through outdoor play developing physical strength, spatial reasoning, focus and concentration with opportunities for risk and rigor.
The Acorn School’s Emergent Curriculum is featured in the Early Childhood Success video series produced by The Ayers Institute for Teacher Learning & Innovation at Lipscomb University.