Children in the foreground jump rope on a paved path, while a lush green forest forms the background.

"Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination." — Mary Oliver Every morning, inside a grand old stone church in Saint Paul — arched windows, a bell tower, the kind of place a child might mistake for a castle — a small group of children begins the day the same way: a morning lesson, a poem, a song on the pentatonic flute. Later there's watercolor, beeswax modeling, work in the garden, and long stretches of unstructured play outside — rain, snow, or sun. This is Meadowlark: a nonprofit, nature-based, Waldorf-inspired microschool with a second grade and a fourth grade, taught by two longtime Waldorf teachers, Joyce and Will. It's learning experienced with the head, heart, and hands. In a moment when screens are pulling kids further from each other and from the world outside the window, Meadowlark is doing something quietly radical: teaching children to pay attention — to a seed, to a story, to one another. We're a small school, and we run close to the bone. We're asking our community to help us with three things: Keep it accessible. We never want a family turned away over money. Your gift to our tuition assistance fund keeps a seat open for a child who belongs here. Take care of our teachers. Joyce and Will are the heart of this school — longtime Waldorf teachers who give the children their full attention every day. We want to pay them fairly and stand behind them, including the substitute coverage and continuity that let a teacher step away when life needs them without the children missing a beat. Stock the classroom. Supply costs keep climbing. The beeswax, the watercolors, the flutes, the main-lesson books, the seeds and garden beds, the materials for our seasonal festivals — it adds up, and it's the raw stuff of every day here. If a school like this seems worth having in the world, this is a way to help it stay in the world. Every dollar goes straight to the children. We'd love for you to be part of it. Meadowlark Microschool is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Your donation is tax-deductible to the full extent allowed by law.

Meadowlark Microschool

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