DENVER — The air was so bitterly cold here on a Tuesday morning this month that public schools delayed classes for two hours. With the temperature around 12 degrees at 8 a.m., Jacquelyn Farnsworth said her husband, an electrician who usually works outside, was assigned indoor duty. But Farnsworth’s daughter, Josephine, 3, doesn’t get indoor…
DetailsA 2½-year-old boy named Ben was ankle-deep in a Jefferson County creek when suddenly he lost his footing and plopped onto his bottom in the cold shallow water. The fall didn’t faze him. Neither did his dripping shorts. He got up and kept playing. About a dozen children frolicked in or near the creek that…
DetailsMost everyone loves to swing. Even adults. That’s why we have hammocks and porch swings. They are associated with relaxation, rest, and contentment. Maybe that’s why kids love to swing too. That and the amazing physical feeling of flying. Swings were always my play structure of choice. I could just concentrate on the movement, the…
DetailsHere is a little story for you. One day, after an afternoon at the creek, a little girl tells her mom, “I brought something home from school today.” “Ok dear”, says Mom nonchalantly, expecting a stick maybe or a handful of leaves. “It’s in my shoe”, says the little girl. They get out of the…
DetailsOne of the best benefits of forest school is knowledge of nature. We sometimes think that kids will automatically understand night and day, seasons, plants, and animals, but they need to truly experience these things in ways that are meaningful to them in order to connect. Sounds good right? But in practice, really grabbing hold of a child’s attention,…
DetailsThere is something about the outdoors that breaks you down to your core. It makes us fearful, in a way, to be in the wild, yet strangely comfortable, like we are fulfilling some primitive part of ourselves. Adventures outdoors show us what we are truly made of, instead of how others see us. Kids feel…
DetailsForest kindergarten or nature school is often referred to a “classroom without walls” where young children spend their time outdoors in nature creating toys with found objects and experiencing little adventures with their imaginations. In Germany, Waldkindergraten (forest kindergraten) is common. And lately, in America, the popularity of “out of the classroom and into the woods” preschools and kindergartens is growing as…
DetailsOn a recent trip to Colorado we were invited to join Worldmind Nature Immersion School for a session of their Child-Caregiver Forest School at Chatfield Botanical Gardens in Denver. They hold child-caregiver groups for children 0-8, ecological awareness drop off classes for children 4-10, as well as family camping trips seasonally. Aside from this location…
DetailsStream-side schooling? Read how some curriculum is ditching stuffy classrooms for lessons and learning completely outdoors. This is kindergarten redefined. “Your home?” 3-year-old Aiden asks, looking nervously at the slippery slope between him and his friend. As he starts making his way down, he steps and then falls, but he doesn’t cry. Instead, he slips…
DetailsOn a cold January day, with temperatures hovering just around freezing, a group of 20 kids, 18 months to five years old, and a handful of their parents gathered for a day of kindergarten in Denver City Park. Bundled in warm, waterproof clothes, no one complained of the cold. After all, they signed up for…
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