"An environment-based education movement--at all levels of education--will help students realize that school isn't supposed to be a polite form of incarceration, but a portal to the wider world."
- Richard Louv (Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder)
Inspired by Louv's philosophy, we redesigned our playground space and added naturally stimulating materials that would heighten a child's sensorial awareness.
- For their ears: a musical chime wall and wind chimes.
- For their eyes and ears: bird feeders and birdhouses that brought winged animals to visit us for feeding and nesting.
- For their fingers and eyes: mosaic murals that invite tiny fingers and wondrous eyes to examine a seasonal depiction.
- For their hands and mouths: gardening and harvesting opportunities are planted in container gardens, clay pots, and our terraced Discovery Hill.
- For their hands: easels for painting and drawing landscapes in the sunlight.
- For our bodies: Adirondack chairs and benches for sitting, thinking, listening, and wondering outdoors. Also, riding toys, wagons, wheelbarrows, balls, bats, basketball hoops, soccer nets, sand toys, shovels, and streamers to enjoy throughout every season.
- For their minds: wood cookies, wood stumps, wood branches for moving, building, sitting, jumping, problem-solving and imagining.
- For all their senses: water to pour, pump, sprinkle, run through, and ENJOY!
"There is something magical about watching children play outdoors. Their bodies are in constant motion and the learning environment becomes the "good earth." A mosquito on the strawberry plants generates a discussion about how wings move and several children move their arms to replicate the intricacies of flight. Rocks are sorted according to size and changes on our tree are documented in our science notebooks.
Betty Cantor, Preschool teacher, Golden Days Children's Center
