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Mission
Mission
To guide learners through daily outdoor explorations, play, and hands-on activities to inspire understanding of, connection with, and stewardship of the natural world, our food systems, and our relationships with one another.
VISION
Reconnect learners with the outdoors, their food systems and one another.
Goals
Goals
Combat Nature Deficit Disorder (increased screen time, lack of free play, and disconnection with the outdoors) with the power of time spent in nature to support child development.
Provide a safe space for students to learn, grow, and play together as they explore the food system, social interactions, and the wonders of the natural world around us.
Play is vital to children’s development and nature is the perfect place to learn to safely explore and learn in.
We will be growing, harvesting, and eating healthy foods as we reconnect with where our food comes from.
With Covid-19 our youngest have been hit hard with restricted social interactions and need time away from technology to build their critical thinking skills.
Reinforce kindness, understanding, and compassion as we learn about various cultures through reading, art, and music.
Create a safe cohort model group of young students who can grow and play together in the safety of the outdoors.
Reinforce environmental literacy by teaching natural history in the outdoors.
Use exercise, outdoor exposure, and gardening for healthy bodies and peaceful minds.
VALUES
Connection:
Interdependence: natural cycles and connectedness
Building relationships and honoring differences and similarities
Stewardship:
Scientific and critical thinking skills, like arguing respectfully from evidence observed.
Understanding, respect, and stewardship of connections with the world around us, our food, and one another.
Awareness and kindness:
Social-emotional learning (compassion and empathy), leadership and listening, regulating emotions.
Create a safe anti-racist community that values respect, kindness, and honesty
Healthy minds and bodies:
Learners are encouraged to stretch their boundaries and try new things.
Maximize time spent outdoors with place-based experiential education that includes multidisciplinary topics.
Prioritize movement, exploration, play, learning
THE RESEARCH
Nature-Based Preschool Professional Practice Guidebook:
Teaching, Environments, Safety, and Administration
by North American Association for Environmental Education: Natural Start Alliance
Nature in Early Childhood Education
Nature is increasingly being recognized as an important, and often low-cost, tool for fostering children's health and development. Whether it's natural environments, gardens, green schoolyards, outdoor classrooms, or even simply views of nature, research suggests that there are a variety of ways that nature enhances children's health and development, including:
Enhancing brain development
Improving academic performance, including helping children produce richer writing and providing foundations for science learning
Enhancing communication
Promoting socio-emotional development
Promoting emotional resilience and self-regulation
Promoting executive function
Promoting mental health benefits
Reducing Stress
Reducing symptoms of ADHD
Providing therapeutic benefits to children with Autism
Promoting physicals activity and motor development
At the same time, research also points tot he importance of childhood experiences for foraging connections to the natural world and promoting the development of environmental literacy. Fore example, research has revealed that childhood experiences in nature or with environmental education can:
Promote the development of children's ecological identity
Foster children's ecological literacy
Increase children's knowledge of animals
Be associated with pro-environmental attitudes with adults
Predict environmental citizenships and a commitment to nature-based activities in adults.
Early childhood environmental education aims to maximize the benefits of early experiences in nature to create a foundation for environmental literacy.
The text above is quoted from Page 8-9 of NAAEE: Natural Start Alliance's Nature-Based Preschool Professional Practice Guidebook.
New to Outdoor Preschools?
Check out this short video with REI!
New to Outdoor Education?
Check out Hidden Villa's World of Wonders: Learning Series
Looking for more information on our philosophy?
Place-Based Education - David Sobel
Nature Preschool: Handbook for Outdoor Learning by David Sobel
The World Becomes what we Teach by Zoe Weil
Deep Nature Play by Joseph Cornell
Sharing Nature with Children Volume 1 and 2 by Joseph Cornell
Last Child in the Woods and The Nature Principle by Richard Louv
The Nature Fix - Florence Williams
A Year of Forest School - Jane Worroll and Peter Houghton
How to Teach Nature Journaling - Emilie Lygren
Coyotes Guide to Connecting with Nature by Jon Young, Ellen Haas, and Evan McGown
Preschool Beyond Walls by Rachel Larimore
Culturally Respoinsive Teaching and the Brain by Zaretta Hammond
Nature-Based Preschool Professional Practice Guidebook
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