What is a forest school? 

The term ‘forest school’ refers to both an outdoor space for children to learn, and to the pedagogical approach to early learning. Forest schools in the U.S. have evolved from traditional Wald-kindergartens in Europe, which have been considered trusted learning environments for centuries. These schools prioritize student-directed learning and emergent curriculum, free play and exploration in nature, and place-based education, and community building. 

 

Based on my experiences working in both traditional and forest school classrooms, I can attest to the benefits of the latter. The key differences between these two types of learning environment are the contrasting flexibility in daily structure, diverging focus and priorities, disparate opportunities for movement, and dissimilar roles for both educators and students. 

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Children today have higher levels of physical and emotional needs than children of thirty years ago. General education classrooms and group care centers increasingly unable to address these needs, and families are often called upon to provide an aid as an out-of-pocket cost. This leaves many families with no choice but to flounder in or withdraw from their program, depriving the child of socialization and play opportunities and augmenting the emotional, cognitive, or behavioral needs they are experiencing. During my professional experience, witnessing children with needs that exceed the capabilities of a school get turned away or left behind emphasized to me the need for educators who can offer comprehensive strategies for children with varying levels of need.

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Traditional classroom structures require long sedentary hours and intense focus from young children, creating unreasonable expectations that set some children up for failure and frustration, particularly those who may possess a predisposition for restlessness or a heightened need for movement. Forest schools offer a more flexible structure, designing both scheduling and curriculum around the needs of students and including opportunities for active exploration, experimentation, physical movement, and self-directed play. Another benefit of forest school comes from their small teacher-student ratios, allowing for closer supervision than traditional classrooms. This means that teachers are able to allow for independence and exploration within reasonable boundaries. The practices and structure of forest school environments also encourage a reimagining of specific behaviors that might otherwise be considered disruptive as developmentally appropriate urges towards play. 

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Children need play for healthy development. 

Play is a neurobiological imperative during early development. Through play, children learn social conventions and rules, make discoveries about the world and about themselves, begin to distinguish between reality and imagination, and develop complex problem-solving skills. Children require ample opportunities for play, including rough-and-tumble and physical play, which is often highly limited in traditional classrooms, and, in contrast, is an essential aspect of forest school classrooms. In a forest school setting, children are invited to jump, run, climb, shout, dance, and be wild. 

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 Nature-based education spaces provide: 

 Physical Benefits such as core, muscle, and bone strength; balance & coordination; improved immune functioning; fine and gross motor capabilities, improved flexibility, improved vision, improved digestion, increased lung capacity, and increased endurance

Social Benefits such as navigating social rules, creating games, collaborating with peers, sense of community, sense of belonging, development of a sense of self, autonomy and choice, leadership opportunities

Emotional Benefits such as successful emotional regulation, development of self-soothing strategies, improved self-confidence, a wide variety of sensory experiences to explore and create

Cognitive Benefits such as increased problem solving abilities, early STEM skills, and deeper understanding and internalization of experiential lessons, language development, familiarity with local species of plants, animals, and seasonal changes

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What is free play? 

Free play is child-directed, unstructured time for children to explore, create, wander, and discover. This type of play is essential for fostering imagination, competence & independence, autonomy, and calculated risk taking. Free play allows children to take ownership of their activities, provides opportunities to enjoy the process of play rather than the expectation of a product or result, and create stories, scenarios, and worlds in which they are the chief engineer. Free play in an outdoor environment means ample opportunities to run, shout, jump, spin, climb, roll, kick, throw, balance, laugh, and sing, without sticky surfaces, hard edges, and bombardment of artificial light and color. 

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Pediatric Occupational Therapist Angela Hanscom recommends that children twelve months to thirteen years of age experience five to eight hours of free-play outside throughout each day. She recommends every child get at least three hours of outdoor free-play daily. 

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Free play in an outdoor environment means ample opportunities to run, shout, jump, spin, climb, roll, kick, throw, balance, laugh, and sing, without sticky surfaces, hard edges, and bombardment of artificial light and color. The backdrop of nature's soundscape provides a baseline of soothing sensory input to help children process complex emotions and build self-confidence in their ability to problem solve for themselves. The natural space also provides a sense of timelessness in which children can become lost in their own world of play, an invaluable and rare gift. Instilling a love of nature in your child will provide life-long benefits for your child, and perhaps, in creating young stewards of nature, will provide life-long benefits back to the land, in turn. 

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What is Emergent Curriculum? 

Emergent curriculum encourages children to take an active role in their learning to strengthen their belief that they can ask questions, explore, wonder, and investigate any area of interest. In this type of curriculum structure, students begin the school session or year with access to a basic array of materials. As they engage with these materials and exploring their outdoor classroom environment, they will begin to form questions and express interests. Educators will then identify both individual and group interests and introduce new materials to support learning. Explorations of these kind can be both short-term (over the course of a day) and longer term (over the course of a season). Often, multiple explorations of varying levels of intensity and involvement will unfold over the course of a school term. Learning is then observed and documented by teachers and shared with children's families. 

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An Example:

This curriculum emerged in my classroom during my time as a lead teacher at NELAFS, with students age 2-4:

 

Children began to take a notable interest in the children’s book Charlie Needs a Cloak, by Tommy DiPaola -- It stood out to them. In the book, Charlie, a shepherd, spends his year tending to his sheep. But, by the end of the winter, he needs a new cloak. The book provides illustrations in which Charlie shears his sheep, washes and cards the wool, spins it, dyes it using berries from his fields, and weaves it into a new cloak. Each step in the process is paired with a distinct seasonal change, supporting temporal awareness and early history skills.

 

To support this interest, first, we turned to our local libraries. We checked out books that had illustrations and photographs of sheep and farms, depictions of weavers weaving fabrics, as well as books detailing the historical significance of woven cloth. This exploration provoked further questions about the process of weaving, the uses of farm animals, and where their own clothing comes from; the gratification of this wealth of information encouraged children to regularly seek out answers using books from our classroom library, as well as their local branches. 

 

We were then able to source and provide locally harvested sheep’s wool. The children were able to wash the wool and use small carding brushes to smooth it out. They were able to observe the differing textures, as well as the grass and mud left behind in some clumps of wool from the sheep. Children enjoyed the sensory process while also developing their fine motor skills and learning about real-world processes. Several of them would spend long chunks of time on this project, developing social-emotional skills by chatting during their work. 

 

Once this process was complete, we used a traditional spool donated to the school by a local indigenous woman to spin the wool into yarn. The tool was a source of many questions, providing an opportunity to discuss both traditional and industrial methods of cloth-making, complete with photos for reference.

 

Next, we went on hikes to forage for plants that we could use for color. Harvesting dandelions, acorns, morning glories, and eucalyptus bark from places where they grew in large numbers, children learned about local species, developed their attention skills, and practiced counting. We then used a camping stove to boil each ingredient into a colorful liquid. Children were able to observe the boiling process from outside of a danger circle, supporting safety skills, executive function, and early science skills.

 

Once the yarn was dyed, the children used a handmade loom to weave together a creation. In addition to the yarn, children wove sticks, feathers, leaves, grass, and flowers into the loom. They collaborated on this project and spoke often and fondly about the process and about each individual’s contribution.

 

By the end of the school year, the children had cooperatively created a beautiful woven tapestry that remained in the classroom. They would often bring their parents to look at it and discuss their favorite parts of the process. This prolonged, immersive project was clearly a deeply meaningful and relevant experience for these young learners, and it will stay with them for many years. Further, it was extremely gratifying to watch the group become closer with one another as they worked towards a similar goal, and to develop as individuals by choosing their level of participation and having their voices heard when they offered suggestions or questions. This type of individual and group exploration builds an ongoing love of learning, strengthens communities, and creates lasting memories for children.

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Books that Inform My Practice: 

Nature Preschools and Forest Kindergartens: The Handbook for Outdoor Learning ~ By David Sobel

The Sky Above and the Mud Below: Lessons from Nature Preschools and Forest Kindergartens ~ By David Sobel

Balanced and Barefoot ~ By Angela Hanscom

Beyond Behaviors: Using Brain Science and Compassion to Understand and Solve Children's Behavioral Challenges ~ By Mona Delahooke, PhD

From Children's Interests to Children's Thinking: Using a Cycle of Inquiry to Plan Curriculum ~ By Jane Tingle Broderick and Seong Bock Hong

The Last Child in the Woods ~ By Richard Louv

Forest Kindergartens: The Cedarsong Way ~ By Erin Kenny

Teaching the Cedarsong Way: Lessons from an Award Winning Forest Kindergarten ~ By Erin Kenny and Robin Rogers

The Sense of Wonder: A Celebration of Nature for Parents and Children ~ By Linda Lear

Beyond Ecophobia ~ By David Sobel

The Hidden Life of Trees ~ By Peter Wohlleben 

A Sand County Almanac ~ By Aldo Leopold