The Hearts and Minds Learning Community is pleased to offer customized learning journeys — we meet learners where they’re at and help nurture and grow their lifelong love of learning.

HMLC does not adhere to one particular educational philosophy. Instead we focus on play-based, student-directed learning. For the early childhood program, this often contains elements of Montessori, Reggio-Emilia, nature school and more.

Extensive research has been done into the benefits of play-based learning, particularly for early childhood education. The Hearts and Minds Learning Community focuses on uninterrupted play time, “guided” play time and cooperative play time. We listen to and observe our learners and we trust them. We know they’re packing A LOT of learning into every moment.

Check out Ms. Emily’s updates for snapshots of how we’re playing and what we’re learning!

Learners in the Hearts and Minds Learning Community are guided by their interests. But some of what we read about, talk about, work through includes:

• Creating and making — arts, dancing, music, visual art, theater

• Storytelling - reading, words, sounds, rhymes, illustrating, writing

• Numbers - counting, shapes, order, adding, subtracting, patterns

• Nature - the earth, animals, plants, ecosystems, climate health, forming and testing a hypothesis, experiments

  HMLC's mixed-age kindergarten program uses the Blossom and Root and Wild Math curricula as a foundation, but learning is tailored to each individual child's needs and learning style. Elements of Montessori, Reggio Emilia, nature school and more are incorporated on a daily basis. The HMLC mixed-age kindergarten program also meets the state of Minnesota academic standards for children through the end of kindergarten.

Safe(r) socialization is a particular area of focus for the Hearts and Minds Learning Community. Other life skills we play through include:

• How to be a good citizen

• The value of helping others

• Healthy habits

• Fine motor skills

• Cooking/cleaning/finance

The Hearts and Minds Learning Community is committed to diversity, equity and inclusion. We incorporate a variety of diverse materials and concepts, and we strive for diversity in families and visitors.

The Hearts and Minds Learning Community is also committed to age-appropriate body learning and safety, including consent education. HMLC is a gender inclusive school.

Our early elementary program for ages 7-9 is an outdoors-first, mixed-age, student-directed learning experience. While the curriculum and educational goals are customized to each child, family and their learning styles, HMLC has a broad focus that includes:

• Communication skills, including writing, reading, arts and literature.

• Math

• Science and the natural world

• History

• Social sciences and governance

• Health

Older learners (ages 5 and 6) in our mixed-age kindergarten program will have opportunities to “move up” and spend time learning with the early elementary group as they are ready and as they desire. This allows for a more gentle, less stressful transition to next level learning!