I recently visited a nature-based preschool, and it is about one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. It's just like any other preschool really, except that every single day is spent outside. Rain or shine, snow or no. The only time they confine themselves to a building is when thunder is booming and lightning is literally striking down the street. Their inside classroom is small, filled to the brim with birds nests, log cabin forts made from recycled milk jugs, and chairs that were nothing more than cut up chunks of trees. Their real classroom however, is gigantic. Because it happens to be the whole outdoors, or at least the many acres that they own.
During my visit we traveled first to “Mud Mountain”, a great hit I am told. Especially on the last day of school when the students have field day and are allowed one bucket from the creek to pour over the mountain to create the sloppy mess that, deep down, we all desire to play in. Parents are told that day not to expect those clothes to ever be the same again.
I was speaking with the director about the children while they played but I suddenly found myself saying, “I really do want to talk about this, but I am being called to play on Mud Mountain.”
“Go!” She exclaimed. I’m sure she could think of nothing more important. I feigned weakness and asked for help up the “mountain” in a strained voice.
“Pull me up! I can’t make it!” I said.
“JUST CLIMB UP!” They all yelled as more and more of them grabbed my hands to pull me up the mountain with all their might, giggling with the humor of it all.
We played a while and then it was time to move on. We walked all the way around their pond, to a lovely swing, passed a swampy flooded woodland, up and down hills. A total of 1.5 miles, and not one single child commented on the distance. They never said they were tired. They ran ahead and knew when to stop. They knew all the cues and when they had gone too far.
We dug for “The Key to China”, we climbed up “The Big Tree”, we played in the “Dinosaur Boneyard”. All the while not one child whined that we had walked too far, that they were tired or bored. They lay on the forest floor, they climbed fallen trees to sit in during story time. They ate their snacks crisscross on the grass, and when they spilled it was ok, because we were outside.
The entire world was their imagination playground, ready to become absolutely anything with just a little magic sprinkled on top. Everything became something else, especially sticks. They were bows to shoot an arrow, they were swords to fight a villain, they were billows to stoke the fire of a steam engine while the conductor hollered, “All aboard!”
One child ripped his long sleeve shirt from elbow to wrist. I said, “What happened here??” and I looked at his arm to see a long pink cut.
“Oh I don’t know, I just caught it on a thing over there,” he said as he sat casually, bouncing on a large grape vine. Not once did he cry. Never did he ask for a band aid. He just kept playing, because in his words, “it happens."
All day I heard polite young voices. Sharing their snack, asking to play, offering a hand to hold. They counted acorns off the ground and recognized letters and words on trail signs and in storybooks. In my eyes they were learning plenty of "school stuff" but mostly they were learning how to behave among others.
Kids don’t need to learn how to write their name when they are 3. They don’t need the stress of having to sit down and learn to add and subtract at 5 so that they can succeed in kindergarten. This world is stressful enough. Children need to play. They are still figuring out what it means to be a human in this world, something that is still difficult even for adults. They need to learn kindness, and forgiveness, and just to be. People are forgetting how to be. And it breaks my heart.
This won't be the last you hear of nature-based preschools. They are becoming quite popular, with only five in existence in the U.S. about ten years ago there are now over 200. More and more people are seeing the importance in learning in the natural world, and it is beautiful, and so necessary. It's fantastic that more people are seeing that we need to help children exist more as people in front of us and less as scores on paper. For them to be seen, and for them to just be.
