Hopping Frogs and Trail Walks...
by Priscilla Woyke

"I like frogs - the way they hop.  They sleep under the ice and they go in the mud."

"Sometimes in the water you see snakes.  Sometimes in the pond you see them.  They're called water snakes.  Snakes don't have legs, they slither."

"I know that snakes have cold blood.  Mammals have warm blood."

"I like going on nature walks.  We look for sticks, rocks, leaves and we also look for dirt, rocks, and leaves in the pond."

Enthusiastic and curious children are discovering the natural world at the Beginner's Nature Program, a unique, nature-focused preschool at the New Canaan Nature Center.  For over thirty years, the school has eschewed jungle gyms and sandboxes for daily rambles in the woods and meadows.  The curriculum is based on these direct experiences with the outdoors.

Children are blessed at birth with an avid desire to learn about the world around them - a desire that, if nurtured, will lead to a lifetime love of learning   Children learn best when they are actively involved in their own process of learning and in environments especially suited to their age and development.  We believe that this environment must include opportunities for hands-on experiences with the natural world around them.

The Beginner's Nature Program (BNP) serves 3, 4, and 5-year-old children, with an emphasis on many, repeated direct sensory experiences with the natural world.  We focus on creating an awareness of and appreciation for the natural world.  This unique preschool accomplishes environmental education goals while addressing the whole child's developmental needs.  We integrate environmental education into our curriculum - not as a separate subject, but as a pivotal element of art, music, math, language and literacy, dramatic play and other curriculum areas.  This nature-based curriculum addresses social, emotional, cognitive, creative and physical skills for all our children.

Unique to this preschool are our daily trail walks.  Every day, regardless of weather conditions, every class goes outside -- not to a traditional playground, but to our 40 acres of ponds, streams, forests and fields.  The teachers lead a leisurely amble through the grounds.  Children balance on fallen logs, clamber on old stone fences and edge into streams.  They collect sticks, stones and fallen leaves.  They peer into holes, pursue bugs and butterflies, and search for salamanders under logs, frogs on the lily pads, water snakes in the pond and insects living in rotted logs.

Our classroom environments, both indoors and outdoors, say, "Please do touch."  We encourage children to use all their senses to explore and discover.  We encourage their innate curiosity about their natural and their physical world.  A nature curriculum is perfect for this hands-on kind of curriculum.  We provide ample opportunities to physically and mentally explore, to touch, to smell, to observe and even to taste food from our trees, such as apple cider and maple syrup.

We also strongly believe that children need time to be themselves: children. They need ample time and personal "space" to play, to practice and work out social skills with other children, and to gain self-confidence and self-esteem.  And most of all, we encourage the children's natural curiosity and strive to teach children to love the environment and themselves.  With persistence, nurturing and encouragement, this love will last a lifetime.

For information about openings in the NCNC preschool and Nurturing Nature, contact Beth Skudder at 966-9577, ext 16.