Category: Children Need Nature
Kindness Week at Nature Preschool
May 27, 2014By Shannon Dryden, Preschool Manager and Lead Teacher
When people think of school and what children learn, it’s important to remember it’s not just reading, writing and arithmetic. Particularly in preschool, building social skills is key. At the Schuylkill Center Nature Preschool, the children have demonstrated how much they have learned about kindness, cooperation, relationships, and compassion. Throughout the year, we have built a community of trust and love between children, adults, and nature. This week, we celebrated all the kind acts of our children with a kindness week. (more…)
Nature Preschool goes camping
May 22, 2014By Rebecca Dhondt, Preschool Teacher
Last week Nature Preschool went camping right in our Tall Trees Playscape. We talked about camping, read about camping, sang about camping and probably dreamed about camping on our rest mats. Activities included playing in tents, snuggling in sleeping bags, hiking, using mess kits, learning about building fires and ‘roasting’ marshmallows.
After reading a camping story, the Nature Preschoolers were excited about creating their own camping story. We took the opportunity to teach about the parts of a story: beginning, middle and end; problem and solution; and characters and setting. After brainstorming we created this…
Learning and Growing with Nature Preschool
April 18, 2014By Shannon Dryden, Nature Preschool Manager & Lead Teacher
As the preschool manager and teacher at the Schuylkill Center Nature Preschool, it is so exciting to see the benefits of children spending time outdoors unfolding right before my eyes. The children have gained endurance and stamina since the beginning of the year. We now venture to ponds and places that are farther away on our trails and the children enjoy these excursions. For example after describing Wind Dance Pond, the children immediately began asking “Can we go there?” Nature Preschool took on the challenge and showed a tremendous amount of…
Photography as Art at Nature Preschool
March 14, 2014The first edition of Children Need Nature, a monthly message from our Nature Preschool. Read more posts here.
Photography as Art
A Nature Preschool Exploration
With the advent of the Frost exhibit here at the Schuylkill Center, we have been delving deeper into art. In particular, we are exploring the many ways that art can be expressed – through sculpture, painting, print, fabric, and even photography. We visited the exhibit as a group and looked in particular at the photographs. The children were able to describe the photos and express the emotions they felt when looking at them. They ran the gamut…
