Daily Routine

Drop your child off with their teachers outside, fully dressed for the weather and prepared for outdoor explorations.

Before beginning outdoor explorations, teachers facilitate individual and group planning conversations to decide on the goals for the morning. When children practice making plans, they are developing specific pathways in the brain that are responsible for impulse control, problem solving, and effective communication. Throughout the year, teachers scaffold cooperative decision making and conversational tools to arrive at mutually beneficial solutions that support everyone's needs.

Outdoor exploration is when a great deal of learning takes place in our program. Children are free to explore and follow their own internal navigation toward answering questions that are meaningful to them. When children are allowed this freedom, they naturally gravitate towards experiences that meet their particular needs for learning, development, growth, and health.

Parents provide a healthy morning and afternoon snack, eaten outside, as children feel hungry. We allow children the freedom and support in learning how to care for themselves by noticing the many sensations that inform us about our needs.

Once all of the children have transitioned inside from outdoor explorations, we have group meeting time for reflections. The children and teachers together discuss their outdoor experiences utilizing many tools for categorization and assessment. We may make maps, tables, and graphs, or children may bring an object to share with the group, tell a story about their play, or show something they made. Reflection helps to solidify learning, develop memory and language skills, build problem solving strategies, and create a sense of community and self-worth.