Child Care / Preschool in Midtown Manhattan, NYC

Pono Learning, Manhattan:
Pono Learning is a democratic and fully learner-directed education center in Manhattan, NYC that serves children from the age of 2 ½ to 5 years old. Pono Learning is an outdoors learning center set up with the purpose of immersing children in rich, stimulating learning environments and harmonious learning communities where each child’s interests and natural innate desire to learn are cherished, nurtured, and guided to flourish into becoming life-long learners, critical thinkers, and balanced human beings.

Early Childhood Education for Kids Ages 2-5:
Children are offered a variety of non-compulsory lessons throughout the course of the day. Depending on the interests of the children, the areas addressed in lessons may include natural sciences, movement, ecology, health, nutrition, language arts, theatre, art, yoga, music, cultural and global studies, and others. Literacy and mathematics are embedded in all offerings.

Guided Nature Hikes in NYC Parks:
We go out to New York City Parks and explore. Interconnectedness in life is the focus of these very flexible, children-directed, and hands-on explorations. In a variety of habitats, the children touch, smell, and see how living and non-living elements of the ecosystems interact, and ultimately, how human interactions can impact these delicate relationships.

Through hikes in the most wild parts of Central Park, Riverside Park, Van Cortlandt Park, Inwood Hill Park, and Prospect Park, the children were introduced to a number of topics like wildlife management, animal signs, tree identification, bird identification and behavior, insects and invertebrates, aquatic ecology, and ecological concepts like producer, consumer, and decomposer.

Pono-STREB Workshops:
At this action dance company's home studio (a former warehouse), Daniel, a STREB dancer, and Ilona, our Pono movement teacher, work with our children on exploring their own action adventures with and without movement tools/equipment. Daniel’s focus is on assisting the children in creating their own movement vocabulary. Ilona’s focus is on character and community development.  Following the workshops, we watch the company dancers rehearse their new show.

In the Open Studio:
In the Open Studio... taught by Ilona Bito and featuring guest musicians, is an opportunity to play, pretend, and create together. We continue challenging our growing bodies with pop-action and obstacle courses introduced at STREB, taking our action in a new direction.

We engage our imaginations as we learn about the elements of dance through guided improvisation with props, costumes and stories, and about music by playing instruments along with our talented guests. While there is no type of performance predetermined for this workshop, Ilona encourages participating dancers and musicians to explore the creative possibilities of working together, which is at the heart of dance and music. The main focus of In the Open Studio is the unfolding enjoyment and exploration of the action, sound, and story living in our bodies, in an open ended collaborative style. 

Pono About Town:
This series of field trips provides children the opportunity to design their own learning within a community.  We go anywhere that the children suggest as long as it falls within the guidelines we set together. Following the suggestions of the children, we planned field trips to the beach, city and suburban/rural farms, special playgrounds, as well as tours of the NYC waterways.