Nestled in a corner of the Mancos Valley, children ages 2½ to 7 dance and play in what has become a sanctuary for alternative early childhood learning.

It is here that the nonprofit Mancos Valley Dragonfly School has welcomed students for the past three years.

Departing from traditional schooling methods, the Dragonfly School embodies techniques from the Waldorf Education principles, which sees education as an experience that “teaches the whole child,” said Dragonfly teacher Claire Broughton.

It’s a curriculum that Broughton described as the “fastest-growing independent school curriculum in the world.”

Broughton, a previous Waldorf instructor, moved from Boulder to teach at the school.

“Math isn’t just math, and science isn’t just science,” she said. “Everything is applied and goes together.”

Many of the school’s staff of eight relocated to teach at the school. Wendi Jensen, another instructor versed in Waldorf teachings, moved from California. She spoke about the school’s gentle, repeated routines guided by song and the seasons that encourage a“joyful contentment, kind of dreamy” head space in children.

Dragonfly began as a one-room preschool house. The school now has 27 enrolled students, but with the addition of a first grade in the 2022-2023 school year, it hopes to grow.

Nine parents brought the idea for the school to life. One of the parents, Mancos native Emily Palmer, is now the board president of the school. Her parents own the 160 acres the school is built on and fronted the costs for the initial build.

Much of the school’s success has resulted from community and parent volunteering, Palmer said. For instance, a mother takes care of the landscaping. A father is building a shaded structure for the playground.

“To use the cliché saying, it takes a village to make a school,” she said.

The closest Waldorf schools are in Santa Fe and Albuquerque. The Front Range also has Waldorf schools.

Dragonfly focuses on teaching life skills such as folding laundry and cooking. Fundamentals like math and reading are incorporated into curriculum – not in the traditional sense, but more loosely with application, school staff said.

Oddly enough, the students love folding laundry.

“The way that we hold the rhythm; they’re so capable of sitting when it’s time to sit and following along when it’s time to follow along,” Broughton said, adding “even though they might be quote unquote ‘behind’ because they haven't learned ABCs in a structured way, we do in a lot of other ways.”

There are no worksheets or rigid memorization, which the school believes can potentially “kill the joy of learning” early on. Instead, the school curates activities like singing songs and introducing vocabulary through fairy tales.

“The idea that children are empty, and we have to fill them up is not our approach,” Broughton said.

The school flows with the seasons. The students spend a great deal of time outside. This spring, they’ll plant a garden and make baskets.

“Whatever is sort of happening outside is what we're doing with the children,” Palmer said.

An outdoor recreation area that began with a sandbox has expanded to include a playground, with additions like garden beds and an amphitheater to come. And the children play among an array of oak trees that they refer to as the “Fairy Grove.”

Every day of the week has a theme. For instance, the children bake bread every Wednesday, or “yellow day,” which they then eat on Thursdays with homemade applesauce and cucumbers. On Mondays, or “purple days,” students feast on brown rice with carrots, pumpkin seeds, tamari, butter, “golden sprinkles,” or nutritional yeast, and “shaky shaky yum yum,” or gomacio, a Japanese-style seaweed topping.

Everything they eat is organic and served family-style.

While the daily fares are quite different from most conventional kindergarten menus, kids enjoy the food because they help prepare it, Palmer said.

The school places an emphasis on engaging tactile senses and understanding how individual students emotionally approach projects like sewing and stitching.

They use natural materials like wood, wool, felt and silk to make crafts that are “not so much things that you just do in one day and you just send them home and then maybe they end up in the recycle bin – things that really take a couple weeks,” Broughton said.

In line with the school’s alternative structure, the new first grade will be taught in two yurts, with a deck connecting bathrooms.

Many families commute from Cortez, Durango and Rico, Palmer said.

What happens when it comes time for children to transition to public school?

The transfer may leave Waldorf students lagging their peers in a traditional sense, the school’s staff said. But the students bring a “quest and drive and joy for learning” that inspires them to quickly catch up.

For instance, Jensen’s daughter received a Waldorf education through second grade, and then attended public school. After a three-month catch-up period, she surpassed her peers, skipped a grade and went to college at 17 years old, where she received two science degrees, Jensen said.

Waldorf school graduates are “well rounded, they’re creative – they’re passionate to apply that to whatever job, whether it’s Wall Street or teaching,” Palmer said.

The school days are split into morning and afternoon sessions.

Palmer acknowledged that the school’s tuition is expensive.

Morning sessions are 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Afternoon sessions are 12:30 to 3:30 p.m.

Preschool: Three morning sessions a week for $430 a month and four morning sessions a week for $575 a month. Full-day programs cost $670 per month for three-day weeks and $895 for four-day weeks.

Kindergarten: Three kindergarten morning sessions a week for $450 a month, and four days, Monday through Thursday, for $600 a month. Afternoon sessions are an additional $80 per session.

First grade: Four morning sessions a week for $660 a month. Afternoon sessions are an additional $80 per session.

The school plans a fundraiser April 23 at Fenceline Cider. All proceeds from a live and silent auction will enter the school’s assistance fund, which helps families with tuition costs, coupled with state aid programs.

“It’s definitely our mission to be able to be accessible for anyone in every family,” Palmer said.

About 40% of students currently receive tuition assistance, on a sliding scale.

For information or to enroll, visit mancosdragonflyschool.org or call (970) 516-0308.

“I think a lot of the families here are committed to being here because they can see the joy and the beauty that's emerging from their children, and they didn't actually know anything about Waldorf,” Broughton said.