We love the outdoors and teaching the children all about nature throughout our curriculum and our environment. Our efforts to help children learn to love nature began with our gardening, hiking, and certified Schoolyard Habitat.  Over the past few years, we’ve thoughtfully created an outdoor environment where children can discover, relax, and learn through their interactions with the natural playscape features on our playground.

We have created spaces for the children to explore, dig, build, climb, be quiet and peaceful, and also care for the area where they play. The children love our playground. The benefits of natural spaces for play are numerous, including:

• Children use their imagination more during play.
• Children are more active during play when there are natural spaces to explore.
• Because of the activities they choose to engage in, they tend to work on their fine motor skills during play in addition to the gross motor skills used on play equipment.

Weather-permitting, the children spend lots of time outdoors every day! We go outside before and after lunch and again in the later afternoon for the children who stay for our full-day program. When it snows, we put on snow gear and head outside, and when it’s raining, we’ve been known to get outdoors for a quick run through the drizzle to burn off some energy and get some fresh air!

We understand the importance of time outside, engaging with nature — it is something that we take seriously and have a lot of fun with!