A Forest Preschool for the Bay Area: A Pilot Study for a New Nature-Based Curriculum

Forest kindergartens are a new idea in the United States but have been around in Germany, Norway, and other European countries for decades. Forest "kindergartens" are preschools for children ages 3-6 and focus on being outdoors and learning through interacting with nature. Instead of building with blocks or doing puzzles at a table indoors, children are outdoors for the majority of the day in all kinds of weather, working cooperatively to build a dam across a stream, for example, or making forts with sticks and leaves, or looking at bugs. The normal activities that make up a school day at a traditional preschool--circle time, song time, snack and lunch--are still a part of the forest kindergarten, but those things are accomplished outdoors. Because full-time forest kindergartens are a new concept in this country, there is little formal research available into their effects on childhood development. In addition, though there are a few curriculum guidelines available from programs in Great Britain and Germany, there is no set curriculum or structure. The purpose of this paper is to develop a set of best practices for a new California-based forest kindergarten program with the goal of opening one of these types of schools in the Bay Area in five years. Three appendices present: (1) Licensing; (2) Memorable quotes about children in nature; and (3) Partial list of US-based nature preschools.