Worldmind Nature Immersion School

“What would our lives be like if our days and nights were as immersed in nature as they are in technology?”  ― Richard Louv, The Nature Principle: Human Restoration and the End of Nature-Deficit Disorder

Free play and a connection with the natural world are quickly disappearing from the lives of young children. The recent shift to the indoors is having an impact on children’s physical, mental, and social development. Many parents and educators recognize the need for unstructured time outdoors, but face obstacles incorporating more time in nature. As a result of the positive impact people are seeing from interactions with nature, movements like forest kindergartens, where young children are given adequate time for unstructured play in the outdoors, are becoming more popular.

However, due to strict childcare licensing regulations these schools have been slow to take off in the United States.   We are here to pave the way for this program and other forest schools across America to thrive and we need YOUR help!  

What we do:

• Worldmind Nature Immersion School offers forest kindergarten classes for young children and their caregivers.  
• Sessions are held on public lands in Denver, Boulder, Morrison, and Chatfield.  
• Children are immersed in an ecological awareness curriculum.

A day in Forest School:

• Community and Trust building:  Young children are free to explore from a secure-base with their caregivers to transition into peer-group activities. (emotional intelligence)
• Location-based Education:  Context-specific explorations in all types of weather; children become competent in their spatial reasoning through becoming familiar with their environment.
• Ecological Awareness:  Foundations of environmental conservation are formed.  Systems of an ecological nature are surveyed through tracking, consistent inspections of plant species, and other valid measures of nature analysis.
• Intellectual Achievement:  Authentic use of the scientific method is present in all science experiments.  Observation and questioning lead to cross-curricular applications.  Nature journals are utilized each day to record events and objects while developing fine motor skills.
• Emotional Intelligence:  Children are in supportive groups where healthy human communication is modeled.  Teachers help facilitate behaviors with respect to human development.  Intrinsic motivation is thus protected.
• Emergent Curriculum:  Child-led interests are valued; teachers plan for a day's activities, but are flexible to honor the genuine interests and motivations of the children's learning goals.  Play is highly valued for its exceptional benefits to childhood development.

For more information, please visit:
http://worldmindnatureschool.weebly.com

We are a 501c3 tax-exempt organization (EIN 473052605).  All donations to Worldmind Nature Immersion School are tax-deductible.