Outdoor Education Program

As an educational facility of The Waldorf School of Garden City, Glen Brook welcomes grades 3-12 every year. These week-long programs dovetail student’s Waldorf Education with Camp Glen Brook's unique offerings. Examples include:

3rd Grade: Harvest and food preparation: students gather apples to make crisp and press cider, gather vegetables to make soups and salads, grind wheat to make bread, churn butter, and enjoy a harvest meal. Students also explore the forest and build shelters, building comfort and confidence for living in the outdoors.

7th Grade: Mechanics: Students lift heavy objects using levers, pulleys, and fulcrums; they hoist each other to the ceiling of the barn in a “bosun’s chair;” and have an introductory experience on the high ropes course, which focuses on an introduction to both mechanics and group social dynamics.

11th Grade: Cartography & Orienteering: Students learn a history of cartography, and practical, hands-on orienteering skills. The “final exam” consists of groups of small students using their newly-learned skills to navigate their way through the woods on a 5- to 7-mile course that finishes at Glen Brook.

Early Childhood Program

Young children live in their senses; all that they learn comes from their direct and immediate experience of daily life. Through creative exploration action and interaction with everything around them children acquire not only the rudiments of intellectual knowledge but an abiding appreciation for the world they have entered.

The Waldorf School of Garden City's Early Childhood Program is designed as a sensory-rich environment for children to discover what lies in the world and to grow their inner capacities. Its aim is to cultivate in young children the foundation for lives of sustained learning and purpose. Formal instruction focused on specific skill development has no place here no matter how seemingly creative the presentation or intense the motivation elicited in the children. Information and abstract skills lacking roots in the growing children themselves ultimately dulls their abilities for creative exploration as well as the joy that both follows and kindles the discovery of the workings of the world.

Adelphi Partnership Program

A great high school is one thing. But a great high school that is next door to a recognized research university? Now that is something entirely different. Rather than approximating a college curriculum, students at the Waldorf School of Garden City can experience it firsthand. Leveraging our location directly next door to Adelphi University, we have a partnership with Adelphi University which makes available to our students, college courses on their campus. Our goal is to make sure that each student graduates armed with the creativity and intellectual capacity to acquire, analyze, and communicate complex knowledge. Through direct immersion, students can get a sense of what is required of them in a colleagiate setting, while still have the benefit of their mentors at our school.

Exchange Program

The Waldorf School of Garden City shares our educational philosophy with over 1,000 sister Waldorf Schools around the world, over 850 of which are outside of the United States. The School s curriculum aims to instill in students a sense of global preparedness. A cosmopolitan student body is integral to this central aim.

Waldorf High School students have the opportunity to participate in an Exchange Program at one of the Waldorf high schools around the world. The school also enjoys visiting international students from these schools. Approximately 30% of the sophomore class participates in the Exchange Program.

An education at the Waldorf School of Garden City is international by default. Trust your questions; question your assumptions. Confront the world in all its struggle and splendor. Let yourself be changed. Learn what you have to give.

Arts & Athletics Programs

From Musical Theatre and Fine Arts to Athletics and After School Clubs, the Waldorf School of Garden City offers a variety of extracurricular activies that allow students to delve deeper into their interests or learn something new while bonding with their peers. Not only do classes from grades 1 through 12 produce an annual class play, High School students who want to take these experiences to a higher level may audition for the annual High School Musical or join the stage crew. Athletes participate in Soccer, Basketball, Baseball and Softball. Additionally, Tennis, Volleyball and Golf Clubs are offered seasonally. Robotics, Literary Magazine, SAT prep, Yoga, Chess, and Baking are clubs that are popular with students as are electives like, Knitting, College Bio, GSA, and Photography. Waldorf students are well-rounded and often participate in a variety of extracurricular activities to satisfy their curious natures and enhance their academic experiences.