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Learning Outdoors at Gale River Cooperative Preschool

Nicole MacKay
Nicole MacKay in the woods. Photos courtesy of Nicole MacKay/Gale River Cooperative Preschool.

After her own two children transitioned from preschool to kindergarten, Nicole MacKay became a teacher at Gale River Cooperative Preschool (GRCP) in Franconia, New Hampshire. Two years ago, the school relocated to Copper Cannon Camp (CCC), whose 128-acre property hosts summer campers during July and August – and now, 3- to 5-year-olds during the school year. Here, children run through the mown field, explore the forest surrounding them, nap in hammocks strung between trees, and use their imaginations to build and learn and play. Beyond teaching at the preschool, Nicole and her family raise their own vegetables, along with turkeys, chickens, and black Angus cows. Read on for some thoughts from the preschoolers, as well as their teacher.

Children learn so much naturally by being outside, where they are able to fill their sensory needs by climbing, running, digging, jumping, transporting materials – all through play. Anything that can happen inside can happen outside, but with more kinesthetic opportunities. Being outside also gives children the opportunity to have hands-on, tangible experiences and dive deeper into science.

Gale River follows the natural rhythms in the world. So, if we see the leaves start changing, we discuss why and go look for the different types of trees, pick up the various leaves, sort and count them. We can jump into topics that are occurring around us because the children are naturally curious. They always ask questions about what they see or hear – if we find a frog or notice decomposing wood with tunnels in it, for instance. These are the best teaching moments, and you can’t replicate this inside a classroom the same way. I feel lucky to work with such dedicated educators. Crystal Hodgdon, who teachers our 4- and 5-year-old students, is a founding member of GRCP and has really encouraged us to pursue teaching outdoors. Our staff includes naturalists and people who just love to be outside.

Hammocks
Students rest in the “napping garden,” tucked within the outdoor classroom.

This is the second year we have been at CCC, and the campus has brought us so many opportunities. There’s a variety of ecosystems on the 128 acres of land available for us to explore. Operating outside has been a goal of our school for years, and moving to CCC really helped move our mission along. During the fall and the spring, we operate 100 percent outside. During the colder months it’s 60/40. Even in winter, it’s rare that the children are cold. It’s the teachers that are cold, and it’s usually because we made a bad clothing choice that morning.

I love this quote by the late educator and naturalist Erin Kenny, who developed an outdoor kindergarten in Washington state in 2006: “Children can’t bounce off the walls if you take away the walls.” The children here have so much space to explore. They can make their own decisions on where they want to play and with whom. They still get to practice social and emotional language from playing with peers, but they’re just not forced into a space that confines their movement and limits their choices. Their play is so creative, often using nature as a symbol for something they experience in real life, such as dirt coffee shops or rock ice cream cones.

Learning leaves
Nicole and her students examine different types of fall leaves.

Being outside also encourages children to be physical and take risks. We live in a world that believes keeping children as safe possible is the only way. But taking risks provides children the opportunity to learn about their own bodies and keeps them safer in the long run by allowing them to learn through their own experiences. By the end of the school year, the physical gain these children make is something worth mentioning. They walk across logs independently, strengthening their muscles that stabilize them and increase their confidence that they can complete the task. They’re able to navigate the rough terrain with ease, hike longer, and have developed resilience to challenging weather over the course of the year.

The outdoor classroom is the best part of our school. At the beginning of the year, we start out with toys. Then we start pulling the toys back, and the kids start using the loose parts that we have out here. It’s fun, and they can be super creative. We just had to take down some trees out here, so we have lots of logs right now. We have fires in the winter, which is fun, and we cook over the fire every Friday. There’s a kids’ cookbook we use, and we try to align whatever treat we’re making with what we’re learning about. For the children who are here until 3 o’clock, we have resting time in our napping garden. We have hammocks hanging between trees in the outdoor classroom. We put on some music, and we give them books, and they sleep and rest in the hammocks.

Reading
Nicole reads to preschoolers at GRCP, where story-time and other activities take place outside.

We also share Copper Cannon Camp’s garden. We take over after the campers leave at the end of the summer. They grow pumpkins and sunflowers for us, and we can harvest the vegetables. We put the garden to bed in the fall and get to help with planting in the spring. We do composting as well. And the camp harvests vegetables for campers all summer long. There’s a master gardener, a volunteer, who is in charge of it.

Community is a large part of our school environment. We believe so deeply in what we’re doing that we want to share it with everyone. We can be so much better if we all work together and utilize our individual organization’s strengths. Our goal as a school is to become a local resource for the greater community. Right now, we’re partnering with Ammonoosuc Conservation Trust (ACT) through their monthly Kids Corner and suggesting books for ACT’s story walks. In return they have suggested hikes on their conservation land that would be appropriate for our age group. We also help develop adventure packs at Abbie Greenleaf Library for their summer program.

And... from the mouths of babes, or preschoolers. Eivind (4), Hudson (5), and Lulu (4) share their favorite things about Gale River.

Eivind The first week of school, we were learning about apples, and we made apple cider. And this week we have seen two big toads and one tiny toad. The thing that I like about being outside is playing in the outdoor classroom. It has toys and logs that are cut down. We’re making a fort in there, and a little mud kitchen. I found two pieces of logs that look like a dragon’s head, so I put them together.

Hudson I’m building a log cabin in the outdoor classroom. And we learn about things that are in the forest. Today we are learning about mushrooms. We are going to paint with them.

Lulu One person wanted to make a volcano with them. But today we are going to make mushroom prints, so we cannot make volcanoes. One person wants to paint a bird with the mushrooms.

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