Our current building opened in 1991 and was specifically designed for early childhood learning. It has nine classrooms–each with direct access to an outdoor classroom and child-sized restroom–four outdoor classrooms, a bike path, library, two indoor playrooms, and a conference room.
Hallway
Aldrich embraces diversity in ability, financial status, race, and culture, and to celebrate this we’ve lined the halls with over 50 flags representing the home countries of current and former Aldrich families. The main hallway also has individual storage for each student to keep a change of clothes and their coat, boots, etc. while they are at school.
Library
The Helmholz Library houses books available for check out to Aldrich families, and children visit once a month with their class. The children’s books are selected, rotated, and maintained by one of our longtime teachers who also serves as the librarian.
Classrooms
We have nine classrooms each set up with multiple centers for child-directed learning including art, dramatic play, literacy, and more. Each classroom has secure storage of adult-monitored materials as well as open storage of student materials to encourage choice and independence during child-directed learning time.
Outdoor Classrooms
Our four outdoor classrooms provide an experiential learning opportunity that fosters development in creativity, fine and gross motor skills, social interaction, and language development. Under the watchful eye and encouraging guidance of their teachers, you may find students in the outdoor classrooms climbing a structure, planting seeds in the garden, organizing a group-dig, or experimenting with the properties of water. Children are in the outdoor classrooms every day that weather permits, and we follow Rochester Public School guidelines for temperature thresholds.
Aldrich School is a member of the Natural Start Alliance, a network of people and organizations that believe that all young children need frequent opportunities to experience, learn from, and care for nature and the environment through high-quality education.
Indoor Playrooms
On days that extreme cold or heavy rain prevents classes from going outside, we have two indoor spaces where students can practice their gross motor skills and burn off some energy.
Children may traverse the climbing wall, build a fort of over-sized blocks, or create an obstacle course with our modular play equipment.
