Every day at Rosebud Garden, we live life with intention and make decisions with a commitment to bring beauty into everything we do. Acting with intention in every aspect of daily lives helps us better focus on what we are striving to achieve. When we strive to cultivate an eye for beauty and keep this at the heart of our everyday lives, we live with intention and purpose. It leads us to greater fulfillment, greater joy and greater peace!
At Rosebud Garden we carry beauty with us, from the materials we select for our classrooms – wood, wool & cotton to name a few – to how we serve our food. 
When adults consciously present children with beauty, it is a gift we can give without explanation. It simply becomes the way we live and what we do. When children are surrounded by beauty, they feel it and it becomes a part of who they are.
Beauty nourishes every part of us and is deeply felt on a soul level. Our senses are nourished and our bodies are enlivened.
Beauty in Order
In Rosebud Garden, the children arrive each morning and are welcomed in the coatroom. The beauty of the coatroom can be seen and felt by its order. Simple beautiful rugs lay on clean floors swept the previous afternoon. Children’s boots are in order above their cubbies. Coats and jackets hang neatly on each child’s hook and baskets holding extra clothing are neatly tucked in place.
In the playroom, toys await the children’s hands and imaginations. Every toy has a place where it ‘lives’ and as with everything in the classroom, has been neatly ordered the previous day. Baby dolls rest together, wooden ducks and turtles wait in the pond ready to be played with again and play kitchens covered with beautiful plant dyed silks are ready to be unveiled and for the kitchen to once again be opened for another day’s tea and cake time. Order is welcoming, calming and restful to the eye and there is beauty in order.
Beauty in Soul Warmth
In Rosebud Garden the children are bathed in warmth and light. Natural light streams in through windows that are framed with soft colored curtains. Lazured walls in warm colors of peach and rose add a layer of warmth to the classrooms. Wool rugs on wood floors and shelving created with drift wood and repurposed barn wood add another layer of warmth from natural materials that feel nourishing to the senses.
As teachers, we add an additional layers to the warmth of soul in the classroom. At Rosebud Garden, we work on a daily basis to be in healthy relationship with one another. The children need to feel and experience the beauty in our working together. We dress with intention, carefully choosing colors and textures in our clothing as well as staying current with our choices. We are intentional with our movements and gestures and our tone of voice. An extension of soul warmth that we as teachers extend to each other and consciously bring to the children, can then authentically be extended to the parents when we greet them every morning and again in the afternoons at the end of a full day. As we work together in this way, soul warmth permeates every nook and cranny and then rays out to unite with the light!
Beauty in Food
In Rosebud Garden, food is a big part of our day and the children come to know each day’s rhythm through food. We love to create beautiful dishes with food that is wholesome, organic and consciously-grown not only to nourish the children but ourselves too!
The beauty in food is in the power it has to heal the body. Our bodies are nourished not only by what we taste, but also by what our eyes see and our hands touch.
When we slice carrots at Rosebud Garden, whether they are orange, yellow or purple, we see how Mother Nature, in her wisdom, creates amazing beauty! It is an order and magnificence that only she can create. When we slice apples in half, we are in awe of the star shape we find inside each apple. Similarly, our warm, freshly-baked rolls are nourishing to our sense of taste and smell, not only through the aroma as they bake in the oven, but when we enjoy them with fresh butter we have churned ourselves.
The beauty in food is that it nourishes every part of us; head, heart, hands and soul. Real, wholesome food enlivens our body and nourishes our senses! We LOVE to cook with delicious, organic, wholesome food at Rosebud Garden because it makes everything we prepare beautiful!
A treasured quote about beauty by Pearl S. Buck, illustrates the value of beauty in relationship to young children. “If somebody were to ask me, ‘What is most important in the life of a child?’, I would say, ‘It is beauty.’ Children long for beauty, but they cannot always create it or find it by themselves. We must help them to discover the beauty in nature. When we show to children what is beautiful, they will search for it.”
Chinyelu Kunz is a lead teacher in the Rosebud Garden programs. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interior Design from the New York Institute of Technology, and her Master’s in Architecture from California Polytechnic University in Pomona, California. Chinyelu has also received Waldorf Early Childhood Teacher Training from Sunbridge Institute in New York, as well as a LifeWays Certificate in Human Development.