The real story behind Bluey’s school. Bluey’s School, Right Here in Baltimore
If you’ve watched Bluey with your kids and found yourself a little teary on the couch, you’re in very good company. Parents love this show as much as their children do. But there’s a story behind it that a lot of families don’t know.
When creator Joe Brumm’s eldest daughter started at a traditional school, playtime disappeared almost overnight. No drawing, no make-believe, just straight into academics. Brumm has said that watching the change in her was awful, and that “the light in her eyes just died.”
So the family moved her to a Steiner/Waldorf school, and Brumm started reading everything he could about why play matters so much for young children. What he learned became the heart of the show. The games kids invent together teach them how to cooperate, share and get along, and Bluey’s school, Glasshouse Primary, grew out of his family’s experience.
Most of us didn’t grow up that way. We remember worksheets and early reading drills, and it’s natural to wonder whether more of that, sooner, is what gives kids a head start. But the research keeps pointing in the other direction. In The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt makes the case that children lost something real when a play-based childhood gave way to a phone-based one. And the skills the World Economic Forum now ranks as most important for the future, like creative thinking, resilience and curiosity, are exactly the ones a four-year-old practices while building a fort or negotiating whose turn it is to be the dog.
Glasshouse Primary is a cartoon. Ours is real, and it’s tucked behind Cylburn Arboretum.
Come see it.
Windows into Waldorf: Small Group Tours
Wednesday, October 21 | 9:00 a.m.
Wednesday, November 18 | 9:00 a.m.
For families with children ages 2½ and up
At the Waldorf School of Baltimore, play is the real work of early childhood, and our preschoolers get plenty of time for it. They build and pretend with friends, and nobody hurries them on to the next thing. Sharing, taking turns and solving problems are things they learn by doing.
Some of our youngest students spend the whole school day outdoors. We run Baltimore City’s only forest kindergarten, where children learn outside in every season and every kind of weather. Mud is expected. So are good boots.
The rest of campus is green too. We’ve been a Maryland Green School since 2010, and in 2024 the U.S. Department of Education named us a Green Ribbon School.
On the tour, Waldorf parents will walk you through our early childhood classrooms and outdoor play spaces and tell you honestly what it’s been like for their own kids. There’s coffee and breakfast. Bring your questions for Admissions Director Ilene Wise, and plan to arrive by 8:45.
Can’t make either morning? Try a free 30-minute Waldorf 101 Online Open House, or call Ilene at 410-367-6808 x 202 to set up a personal tour. www.waldorfschoolofbaltimore.org/visit
