Why Choose a Forest School?
In today’s fast-paced world, where screens often dominate leisure time and structured learning environments may confine creative growth, forest schools offer a sanctuary for deep respite and untethered play. Recognizing the incredible capabilities of children, we consciously slow our pace and make room for wonder and exploration. This allows children to gently test their limits and discover their strengths, fostering an environment where they can grow both confidently and thoughtfully.
Before we dive in, take a moment to watch this sweet video on U.S.-based Forest Schools. While our school has a slightly different approach inspired by Waldorf philosophies, today's discussion centers primarily on the broad benefits of outdoor education.
Benefits of Forest School
Gross motor development is at its best with outdoor play. Children work hard moving logs, climbing ropes, and filling and emptying sand and water. Physics and scientific methods have their beginnings in child’s play. They rediscover and reinvent the world again and again as they experiment with balance and the relationship between their body and space. Child’s play is truly moving and extraordinary.
Early childhood is also where the foundations of our worldview are set in motion. When we feel at home in the natural world, our sense of belonging extends outside of our home and family and into our community and world.
Through tracking and exploration, children find kinship in the trees, beetles, tadpoles, and stones. We discover that we are part of a bigger picture, a bigger family.
We see the world shift and grow through the seasons and see our own growth in that reflection. Learning that each new phase is natural and held by the same rhythm that brings the flowers to life each spring.
Learning to orient to the land, navigate terrain, track weather patterns, maintain healthy body temperature and track proximity to the group are all skillsets empowered by an outdoor classroom. These skills promote a sense of self-sufficiency that provides a foundation of safe practices that transform the outdoors into a familiar and safe place where the children can feel comfortable and at home.
In an outdoor classroom, we learn to tend ourselves, our community, and our planet, bringing a generation into the world that we can trust to protect and make choices that are rooted in a deep love for both humanity and the natural world.
Choosing a forest school offers your child a unique and enriching educational experience that goes beyond the conventional classroom walls. It prepares them not just academically, but physically, emotionally, and socially, to thrive in whatever paths they choose to walk in life.
"In the end we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand; and we will understand only what we are taught." (Baba Dioum, 1968.)
For more insights and to see how our approach transforms education, explore our blog and visit our main website at Kettle and Crow Forest School.
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