International Nursery School / Preschool in Istanbul

Atolye Preschool, Istanbul:
Atölye Preschool in Istanbul was opened in 2003. Atölye's mission is to provide an environment that integrates discovery and learning. Children are between ages 2 and 5. The preschool is inspired by the Reggio Emilia Approach to early childhood education and focuses on the child's interests and curiosity as the basis of the curriculum.

Preschool for children are between ages 2 and 5. Full day and half-day programs with both English and Turkish classes offered. There is also a toddler playgroup for the 0-2 age group held on Saturdays between 10:00-12:00.

The basics of our understanding of education is rooted in the ‘Reggio Emilia Approach’ that has flourished in the early nineties and which, according to research on early infance education, has been approved to be the most appropriate supportive approach concerning child development.

According to our consideration of education, the child, the parents, the teacher and the environment are the four essentials of the chain of education. No matter the infant or the grown up, we are all inclined to learn only what we are interested in and curious about; thus each child brings about his or her own personal interests and needs. The chain of education starts with the child as the decisive factor of the process.

What the teachers are expected to put in is intimate, tender and supportive a relation with the child in order for a better understanding of their personal diversities and to guide them through their education by listening and understanding them the best. Teachers should provide children with guidance by sharing and motivating their interests and enthusiasm and assuring the longevity of the required support.

Achievement of the optimal plans for our precious children can only be possible through effective parent-teacher-environment relationship based on mutual understanding, support and information exchange. Early infance is when children are the most overt to reception that is fundamental in their future characters. Our mission in being a school, is to reinforce all four essentials of the chain of education.

Every space in our school comports a function, a characteristic, a feature; each and every space, including the walls, is designed to lead children to learn, to equip them with new skills and to supply them ever with new experiences. The studio, the carpenter’s workshop, the photography room, the children’s kitchen and the garden are among the leading functional spaces in our school.

The Studio: A full-time university graduate arts teacher accompanies us in our studio which is designed to help children to visualize and communicate their ideas using a varitey of materials and methods as well as to give them the opportunity to test their creativity and to quench their curiosities.

The Carpenter’s Workshop: Carpenter’s, under the supervision of a real-life carpenter, is where the children will find the opportunity to develop their skills in handicrafts and manufacture, and do some great time as they take off for a journey among the very first additions and subtractions and multiplications and divisions of their lives cutting boards into twos and threes or trying to locate the centre of a stool.

The Photography Room: A separate room within the studio, the dark room will give children the opportunity to observe the magical recreation of their shootings on paper. Mastered by the studio teacher, photography will bring the children on the verge of a brand new world.

Children’s Kitchen: Although the kitchen is the most avoided piece of our homes from children as we fear many dangers and a mess, it is still the homely heaven for the little one where he or she can, unintentionally have a chance to experiment with the basics of physics and chemistry and to learn from first hand experience. In our school, we have established a separate kitchen for children where they will take parts in the preparation of their own meals, with a taste of responsibility and cooperation.

The Garden: The 500 m2 garden of our school comprises different functional units just like the interior. Climbing the tree-house, children will reinforce further their imagination and their physical capacities at once. Parents who are grown up given the chance to experience with car wrecks as children will surely understand the purpose of the car-in-the-garden more intimately.

Atölye Çocukevi`s approach to education sees art as a medium to allow children employ and enrich methods of self-expression. This way they can express themselves easily and you would understand them better. Atölye believes that allowing children`s unrestricted creativity is the best way to listen to them. Till now Atölye has given guidance to chidren between 0-6 during their special period. Now it is opening its workshops also to older children.

Creative Workshop is for children between 3-15 and includes painting, projects in three dimensions, story making, creative drama and animations. This workshop is meant for personal development by means of art, free and creative self-expression and discovery.

This weekend workshop is prepared with the belief that each child is creative by birth and that this creativity can be supported by an art programme based on self confidence, motivation, correct space and approach.