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Cedarsong Nature School is run by the Ancient Forest Education Foundation, dedicated to the preservation of native plants and their habitats through "Preservation through Education" |
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VASHON ISLAND, Wash. - When they're outside, the children in Erin
Kenny's class don't head for cover if it rains or snows. They stay
right where they are - in a private five-acre forest. It's their
classroom.
They spend three hours a day, four days a week here, a free-flowing
romp through cedar and Douglas fir on Vashon Island in Puget Sound.
The
unique "forest kindergarten" at Cedarsong Nature School is among
several that have opened in recent years in the U.S., part of movement
that originated in Europe to get kids out from in front of televisions
and into the natural world.
"American children do not spend much
time outdoors anymore," Kenny says. "There's a growing need and an
awareness on parents' part that their children really need to do more
connecting with nature."
To learn more, visit Cedarsong Nature School.
The Seattle Times
has a beautiful video story of the Pre-school program.
Learning, Doing, Being-
"This
powerful interview by a neuroscientist attests to the underrated
educational value of play for young children. German researchers have
found tht children who attend a Forest Kindergarten actually perform
better on standardized tests when they enter public school than their
peers who were pushed into learning numbers and letters at the
preschool stage."
Check out the work of Richard Louv, author of the book "Last Child in the Woods"
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In addition to Kenny's, at least two
other schools have been established: one in Portland, Ore., and another
in Carbondale, Colo.
Kenny opened Cedarsong's doors in 2008,
starting out with five children. She plans to expand the school to five
days a week next year. Kenny says there's a growing waiting list.
The
school is located in the quirky Seattle bedroom community kept
artificially rural by the lack of roads, and county land-use policies.
Cedarsong
is basically set up as a camp. It has three cabins, one being a library, another
for equipment and the last one for a compost bathroom equipped with
child seats.
The camp also has trails and play spots, such as Fairyhouse Land, where there is a forest hut covered with ferns.
It
also has tables to make mud cakes, buckets and rakes to scoop mud, a
small drawer to keep the children's discoveries (fiddlehead ferns,
feathers, lichen and insect-chewed leaves) and a spot for campfires. A
plan for an outdoor kitchen is being drawn as well.
The kids munch on what the forest provides, calling leaf buds "forest candy."
For
Kenny, the preschool is a culmination of years of working with children
and a love for the outdoors. She used to be a lawyer, but was inspired
to start her school after reading Richard Louv's book "Last Child in
the Woods."
In the book, Louv coined the phrase "nature-deficit
disorder" to explain a lack of connection between the country's
children and nature. He argues that the decrease in nature dwelling
leads to a rise in childhood obesity, attention disorders and
depression.
At such a young age, Kenny says, children shouldn't
be taught complicated subjects. They shouldn't be force fed math or
language. She says she's often asked what children learn at her school.
Her reply is that these children are well versed in basic environmental
science.
As time goes by, Kenny says, there will be more evidence that these schools are appropriate models for children.
Kenny
says children should be left to explore by themselves. She and her
assistant teacher use the children's natural curiosity as opportunities
to teach. In her school, the children decide what they're going to do
each day, not the teachers.
"They tend to retain the information better because they're actually touching and feeling and tasting the lessons," Kenny says.
One of the key lessons taught here however is not for the kids, but for the parents.
To
be in this school, parents must know how to appropriately dress their
children for all kinds of weather. That's particularly important in
this part of Washington, where rain is nearly constant in the winter
and showers and sun alternate seemingly minute to minute in the spring.
So, even in May, kids arrive with rain pants, rain coats, mitten, and gloves. If the weather heats up, the layers come off.
Mom Meghan Magonegil says she wasn't sure at first whether an all-outdoor school would work.
"Once
we got here, I would pick Finn up and he'd be wet and muddy and smiling
and happy and I knew it was perfect," she says of her son.
Since
the school opened, only once have the students sought refuge in a small
cabin because of the weather, Kenny says proudly. That day, the snow
was too deep to walk around.
On a recent schoolday in May, the
kids asked questions about leaves and bugs. They already knew which of
these leaves were edible. They climbed trees and ran around the
property. At one point, they decided to play music and, later in the
day, to make cakes out of mud.
In 4-year-old Lorelei Fitterer's opinion, being outdoors is great, especially when it snows.
"Because I get to paint the snow and stick leaves in it, and I used to even taste it. It was so funny," she says.
Common Dreams/AP