Wildflower Open Classroom -

We are excited to be writing to you today about a new educational program we are piloting in our elementary grades called "Forest Days". As you may know, this year Wildflower Open Classroom has incorporated a Forest School TK program, taught by Brian Kehoe, in which the children meet for school in nature, five days a week, year-round. This nature-based educational movement started in Europe over 50 years ago and has been adopted by numerous private and public schools in America over the last 15 years. The objective of outdoor preschools and kindergartens is to focus on developing social competence, personal resilience, and readiness to learn in young children rather than pressing literacy and numeracy skills in isolation from the real world.

Forest Days are a new approach in the United States in which public school classrooms go outside one day a week, year-round, in all weather. This January, a few of our WOC classrooms will be taking their learning to Horseshoe Lake, in our very own beautiful Upper Bidwell Park. In the upper grades, Forest Days have a graduated increase in focus on literacy and math, as well as science and social studies. We will use nature, place, and play-based, as well as student-led learning strategies to structure lessons. There will be opportunities for tracking, hiking, mud and water play, plant identification, nature connection & sensory expansion, fort building, seasonal/phenological study, and wilderness skills development.

A Forest Day is not a field trip, but instead is an essential day of learning that is inspired from and will influence future classroom curriculum. These days support our students mentally, physically, emotionally, and socially and will invoke a sense of awe, wonder, and belonging for all who participate. The benefits of teaching children in nature are too many to list, so an info sheet that discusses the benefits in detail is linked here. If you’d like to learn more about how Wildflower’s Forest Days’ will be structured, you can find our Forest Days’ Parent Handbook here. We are thrilled to meet the kids in nature and watch them grow with each other, the land, and their passion for learning.

While we are currently just piloting our Forest Days program, our plan is to include all classrooms at some point this year. Our goal is to have a fully established Forest Days program integrated into our school during the next school year. We are extremely excited to begin this journey and learning experience that will provide the Forest Day outdoor experience to our students.