What is a Forest School?

A forest school is an alternative schooling environment held outside for the majority of the day. It can also be known as nature-based education, forest preschool/kindergarten, or nature school. Children are encouraged to play and learn outdoors regardless of the weather using nature as their toys and playground. This creates varied and dynamic environments for children to build self confidence, resilience, and powerful social relationships.

Forest schools also help children build a connection to the world around them. Learning in their local environment every day fosters a sense of place that helps the child to know where they belong. This leads to more self confidence and stability that will help them thrive as they grow.

Forest schools as we know them today first became popular in Denmark, Germany, and other European countries around the 1950s. Interest spread and ultimately led to recognized programs and nature-based education being included in traditional schools world-wide today.

For more information on Forest Schools, please check out the links below.

What is Emergent Learning?

Emergent Learning is an alternative curriculum that allows students to organically discover and learn about a topic. A goal of Emergent Learning is to build important skills as a foundation for a child' s future learning. There is no set curriculum, but a teacher will note what the students show interest in and plan upcoming activities and lessons exploring this topic.

For example, in fall a child might notice their favorite tree’s leaves are changing colors. The teacher will ask developmentally appropriate open ended questions to help the child learn observation, correlation, problem solving, critical thinking, and communication skills. The teacher may ask, “What color were the leaves before?”, “What color are they now?”, “What is the texture like?”, “Are other trees changing color?”, “What else is changing right now that you can see?”, “What else is changing right now that you can feel?”.

These questions are meant to help the child notice the changes that happen in fall and their connection to the weather becoming colder. Over the next couple of classes the teacher will include activities about how plants and animals prepare for the winter during fall, paying attention to how the students are responding to the information. If/when they lose interest, the teacher will look for the next topic that piques the students’ interest.

For more information about Emergent Learning, please see the links below.

What is Risky Play?

Risky Play is play that is thrilling or exciting and involves the possibility of injury. There can be multiple elements to risky play such as height, speed, tools, and rough-and-tumble play.

Introducing risky play to children helps them learn how to assess risks, problem solve, and identify their emotions leading to stronger self confidence. Safety is important when assessing a risk and our teachers will help the child determine if an activity is a safe risk or a hazard.

Examples of Risky Play:
Climbing trees
Playing on a large rock
Balancing on a log
Running down a steep hill
Playing with sticks
Carving sticks with vegetable peelers
Jumping off of a rock or log

For more information on the benefits of risky play please see the links below.