Lower School at Wheeler
Learningโand learning how to learnโbegins in our Lower School. With The Nest Preschool for 2.9 – 5-year-olds, Early Childhood Kindergarten, and an Elementary Education Division for Grades 1-5, Wheelerโs Lower School sparks the joy of learning. With our expert faculty, your child will build reading, math, language, and more skills in a safe, trusting, and fun campus environment. (Please note, Kindergarten applicants must be five (5) years old by August 31.)
Our Goal
Wheelerโs Lower School’s goal is to support your child in developing the academic skills, personal awareness, and emotional resilience necessary to be a successful learner and valued member of the community.
Our Program
Wheeler Lower School offers a creative, joyful learning experience built on an enriched daily program responsive to your child. Our signature Aerie Approach enables every student to discover, explore, and develop personal interests and academic passions that go beyond the curriculum. The experienced teachers in our Lower School are extraordinary, enthusiastic, creative, and deeply invested in your childโs success. As a community, students learn to adapt to and work with the full range of emotions, develop greater self-awareness, and, through reflection, discover and embrace their own evolving identities. Students also learn to cultivate healthy relationships through compassion, inclusion, and valuing multiple perspectives.
Our Community
A defining aspect of Wheelerโs Lower School is its strong sense of community. At weekly Community Meetings, grade levels may perform or exhibit their work as well as listen and learn from each other. In addition, Lower School has a buddy system between older and younger grades to build these community connections. Special events bring all students from Kindergarten-Grade 12 together. Two memorable bookend moments take place each year. At the Opening School Assembly, our Senior Class walks hand in hand with Early Childhood students to the seats of honor. These students create the backdrop while the Head of School presents a Welcome Back to School address.ย At Field Day each spring, the March of Purples and Golds leads off as Seniors again link hands with our youngest students to walk onto the field at the Wheeler Farm. Field Day is the oldest continuous Wheeler tradition, and our students love it.
Contact the Head of Lower School Kate Hewitt
Lower School Administration
See Our Stories
If you have ever attended a Lower School community meeting, you may have found yourself singing along with students, faculty, and staff as everyone belts out the Wheeler and Hamilton songs โย and how could you not? Weโve found ourselves singing those catchy, joyful tunes, too!ย ๐ถโจ
At the Lower Schoolโs first community meeting of the year, new and returning students came together to (re)learn the songs and start the year with a musical Wheeler tradition.
โItโs such a special opening ritual to begin our Lower School community meetings with our Hamilton and Wheeler songs!โ says Head of Lower School Kate Hewitt P`30. โSinging together is a creative and unifying act that brings us together as an ensemble. Everyone contributes their beautiful and unique voice to create a tapestry of interwoven melody.โ
The Hamilton song, developed by Lower School Music Teacher Chris Capaldi Pโ31 and retired Hamilton Teacher Maura Healey, was inspired by Paul Simonโs โMe and Julio Down by the Schoolyard.โ
โIt was created to capture the Hamilton School experience in a way that reflects how Hamilton really nests as a unique school within a school as part of the larger Wheeler School community,โ explains Head of the Hamilton School Bill McCarthy. โBut we are all one school community, so the emphasis on friends and on making connections both within Hamilton and across the Wheeler community are all at the heart of the lyric writing in the song.โ ๐๐
Sep 11
Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, begins this evening at sundown. Weโd like to join Hannah and Audrey, the co-heads of Upper School Jewish Affinity, in wishing everyone in our community who celebrates a happy and sweet holiday. ๐ ๐ฏ
Shanah Tovah from Wheeler!
Sep 11
โIt is always a hard day,โ Head of Upper School Neeltje Henneman says as she looks back at 9/11. Twenty-five years ago today she was working in a Brooklyn Heights middle school, and she and her students watched as the second plane hit. They only had to look outside their classroom windows to stunningly see it all.
โIโve never had a moment in my life like that, when I knew the world was different,โ Ms. Henneman reflects. โBut my immediate concern was wanting to make sure the kids were safe.โ
Thankfully, the kids were safe, but her school community lost three parents in the towers.ย
It was an unforgettable loss and an unforgettable day, but, as Ms. Henneman shared with her Wheeler students this morning at Upper School assembly, the feeling that remains two-and-a-half decades later isnโt anger or fear, but one of heightened empathy.ย
โFor me as a New Yorker, it made me feel much more connected to everyone around me. It made me more committed as a citizen of the world. We should all feel safe where we live, and we should all have love and respect for one another.
โWhen I look back on 9/11, Iโm reminded about whatโs really important. Itโs how we treat each other.โ โฅ๏ธ
Sep 11
Itโs hard to believe that just one week ago, the Wheeler community came together for Opening Assembly with the Class of 2027! ๐๐
๐From the procession to the Spirit Color Sorting ceremony, we asked a few of our seniors to share how the morning felt as they officially began their final year at Wheeler. Check it out! We canโt wait to celebrate the Class of 2027 throughout the year. ๐ #classof2027
Sep 10
