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| Nature Curriculum Thank you for your interest in our nature based early childhood school. Our program caters to parents seeking an alternative to home daycare or typical preschool program. We believe the first years of a child's life create the foundation for all later learning. With this in mind, we as teachers, parents, and community members, must nurture children by allowing their "roots" to grow in an environment that best suits the natural ways of the Earth. Studies show that, almost to a person, conservationists or any adults with environmental awareness had some transcendent experience in nature when they were children. Click here to see one of our Nature Learning Story. Key Components of Building Blocks Preschool nature curriculum. •Nature-Based Curriculum •Green Cleaning Products •Organic Nourishments •Professional/Educated Staff •Parent Workshops •Therapeutic Outdoor Trips •Natural Play Yard •Creative Play •Daily Exposure to Music •Wooden Toys & Manipulative's •After-School Enrichment Programs Our school not only help educate children about respecting and tending to the environment, we also help protect children from the many toxic chemicals surrounding them as the result of pollution and unsafe building materials. Gardening, Field Trips & Nature Walks-Download Summer Camp Brochure Preschoolers, toddlers and young children are always learning. When they observe, touch, see and smell-they are learning. It is a never ending part of their young lives. This ‘learning’ fact is a big reason why it is important for children to experience new things and new environments. Here is another learning story. These daily documents are share with you to build a strong home school connection. As parents and teachers there are a variety of places or activities that we can provide for our kids to learn from. Outdoor field trips or nature walks create wonderful outdoor activities for children and preschoolers to learn new things. "As important as unstructured play in natural outdoor settings is—and it is dramatically missing from most of today’s children’s lives—so too are the opportunities for direct learning in the outdoors as a fundamental and foundational part of school curricula. The best way to make learning meaningful is to do so in context—in children’s whole lives and in their nearby surroundings. That includes schools, homes, neighborhoods and all the places where children live and play. They learn, they gain confidence, and they develop a sense of place—all of which combine to create self-confident, competent, capable, and caring adults. The future of the earth rests in the hands of our children, and one of the best things you can do as a socially and environmentally responsible adult is to educate young children about green living and the environment." Link here to the research Children and Nature Movement 2009. Our teacher are PLT Certified. What is PLT? Project Learning Tree® is an award winning, multi-disciplinary environmental education program for educators and students in Pre K-grade 12. PLT continues to set the standard for environmental education excellence. PLT helps students learn how to think, not what to think, about the environment. PLT meets state and national education standards. To learn more about PLT click here. "Exploring nature is a complete sensory experience, and early experiences with the natural world excite children's imaginations and foster their inborn sense of wonder and curiosity— important motivators for lifelong learning," says Kathy McGlauflin, Director of Project Learning Tree and Senior Vice President of Education for the American Forest Foundation, the national sponsor of PLT. A Nature walk spider webs. PDF 1 PDF 2 PDF 3 Your child can join us for an our outdoor adventure! Call today! 248.889.2727 |
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Copyright Building Blocks Preschool 2012
| Example of hands on learning that occurs daily at our school. We played a sunflower math game. To play this game the children would roll the dice. Then they would try to identify the number they rolled. Some children traced the number with their finger to help them learn or identify it. Then would count out the corresponding number of sunflowers seeds and place them on the sunflower. |
Other web sites to learn more about children and nature.
Outdoor Nature Child
Child & Nature Network Nature Story
Find out more about our partner Heavner Nature Connections
Outdoor Nature Child
Child & Nature Network Nature Story
Find out more about our partner Heavner Nature Connections
The Love of Learning
By Melissa Carey
My 11 year old son, Max, and 4 year old
daughter, Emma, attended the Building Blocks
summer camp in 2010. I had the opportunity to
go on a field trip with them to the nature center
at Indian Springs. While on this trip, I had the
absolute pleasure of observing what children
who have a love of learning look like.
The nature guide was leading the group around
the pond and toward the end of our tour we
stopped at a pond with a small dock. To most
observers, this particular spot would warrant
perhaps 5minutes of observation, noticing the
plant and animal life. However, this group of 3 to
11 year olds, were on their bellies pointing out all
there was to discover. Sometimes they got up
and ran to another spot and laid back down in
response to another’s observation. Sometimes
they shouted with excitement. They drew the
teachers’ attentions to what they were seeing.
They asked questions based on their
observations. They were completely engaged.
The guide was very impressed with how much
the children were able to notice. They would
have stayed longer had she not had to get back
to the center. As an educator myself, I know that
the ability to attend to something long enough to
really draw out all that can be gained from an
experience is not innate to most kids – it must be
fostered through continuous opportunities and
role modeling by teachers. I thanked the
teachers on the spot. I also said that their
elementary school teachers would thank them
because they will have delivered to them kids
who love to learn. What is more important than
that?
By Melissa Carey
My 11 year old son, Max, and 4 year old
daughter, Emma, attended the Building Blocks
summer camp in 2010. I had the opportunity to
go on a field trip with them to the nature center
at Indian Springs. While on this trip, I had the
absolute pleasure of observing what children
who have a love of learning look like.
The nature guide was leading the group around
the pond and toward the end of our tour we
stopped at a pond with a small dock. To most
observers, this particular spot would warrant
perhaps 5minutes of observation, noticing the
plant and animal life. However, this group of 3 to
11 year olds, were on their bellies pointing out all
there was to discover. Sometimes they got up
and ran to another spot and laid back down in
response to another’s observation. Sometimes
they shouted with excitement. They drew the
teachers’ attentions to what they were seeing.
They asked questions based on their
observations. They were completely engaged.
The guide was very impressed with how much
the children were able to notice. They would
have stayed longer had she not had to get back
to the center. As an educator myself, I know that
the ability to attend to something long enough to
really draw out all that can be gained from an
experience is not innate to most kids – it must be
fostered through continuous opportunities and
role modeling by teachers. I thanked the
teachers on the spot. I also said that their
elementary school teachers would thank them
because they will have delivered to them kids
who love to learn. What is more important than
that?
| Building the Foundation for a Love of Learning |
