Forest Folk Early Learning Outdoors

Apply for the Early Childhood Educators (ECE) scholarship The Department of Early Education and Care (EEC) and the Department of Higher Education (DHE) jointly offer this scholarship to help early educators increase their qualifications through a college degree.

9th Annual Leadership Forum on Early Education Research, Policy & Practice 9th Annual Early Childhood Leadership Forum (Virtual) hosted by the Institute for Early Education Leadership and Innovation at UMass Boston

ICYMI: Spring Week is back for 2022! We have partnered with old and new friends providing FREE admission and opportunities to some of Massachusetts favorite cultural institutions during April School Vacation Week (April 18-22)!

*Please note that some places are still requiring advanced registration*

Check the calendar below and visit our website at https://www.highlandstreet.org/spring-week-2022 for all information.

Forest Tots is pure joy. It is open-ended, child-led, exploratory, warm, and joyful. Due to popular demand, and the fact that we are trying to limit the group to eight families, we are opening a new Forest Tots session. Yes!

The new session will be open on Thursday mornings and will begin April 28. Come and join us for community, sweet Forest nature play, and making some new parent/caregiver pals!

The link to sign-up is in our bio! 🌲

Place, memory, and play.

One log pile, a very particular log pile invites climbing and jumping and..meowing. 🐈‍⬛

Perhaps it’s the way children need to crawl to climb the logs. Or perhaps it is how they feel midair when jumping. This log pile transforms our children into kittens. They can not see it without meowing, without taking the log pile over, and fashioning their own plate of cat food.

Place
Memory
Play

It is so beautiful and silly and joyful to see. Less silly is that I am always asked to play the role of grandma cat. Grandma!

It is in these moments that I can feel children building deep love and connection to this land and place. There is nothing more powerful that memory, and a joyful memory at that. 🐈

Transitions and routines are so much more than often given credit. Those in-between moments of the day have the power to be grounding, relationship-building, and joyful.

We snacked in the sunshine to stay warm(er) today. After our snack time children always put there snacks and water bottles away, and then get cozy in the forest library to read independently or with a pal. Today, our Forest library was moved to a sunny patch of grass and children settled there after snack.

Routines feel good for children…actually for all of us. It feels good to know what comes next In a child’s day, and what that transition to the next step will look like, sound like, and feel like. And just like this photo, those moments of transition can be really quite lovely when we establish a routine with care no attention.

I don’t often capture these moments. The in-between moments. But they are important. The post-snack-forest-library is one of our favorite routines. What are some of yours? 🌲

We have been playfully inquiring into dams over the last two weeks. The first iteration of children’s dams used only sand and mud. These dams were joyously goopy, gloppy, and washed away with time.

Over the next several sessions together we went on hikes to nearby nature play areas where I knew we could also find dams. We still centered these trips on nature play, and we also took time to notice the materials in the dams. Always astute observers, children noticed rocks, sticks and branches, leaves, and pine needles.

Wouldn’t you know it, this new knowledge emerged in their play back in the forest classroom. They remembered and utilized all of the materials they noticed in the natural dams we have been encountering. They tested their dam, and we all enjoyed observing its strength.

There’s power in observing children’s play and intentionally planning invitations for the environment. What emerges is never known beforehand, and always better than what we could have imagined.

Some days are…

Milk crate building, fort making, tree climbing, bird snuggling, hiking in the sunshine kinda days. ☀️

Afternoon play is back! Mixed-age, child-led play in the woods. Does it get any better than that?

After a long day of school children thrive in the sensory rich environment of the forest, free to play - make - and explore in a slow and unhurried way. Parents and caregivers pull up a tree stump or bring a blanket and build community with other families.

Join us every Monday from 3:45 to 5:15. Link to sign up is in the bio. Sign up is one session at a time. 🌲