Stories of Our Days

School readiness develops over time. Nature tells us that growth is measured in seasons. It isn’t rushed. It is achieved.

Every part of the day is an invitation to notice, connect, and belong with the children and with each other. Through playful exploration, group gatherings, and quiet transitions, children are learning to trust themselves, each other, and the world around them. Moment by moment.

We let the outdoors open our imaginations and we let the indoors hold our reflections.

It is a small rhythm, but a powerful one.

We begin outside.
We carry the world in with us.
And everything inside becomes just a little bit more alive.

I felt a return of the hopefulness. The frustrations, the tangles of to-do lists, the navigating of relationships between builder, architect, and our own school community all melted away. Our building, not just the physical structure, but our intentions had been seen.

At the end of the school year, we celebrate with a family potluck (the food is always good). This shared food is lovingly prepared and bought with careful for others in the community. Children run and play, circling back to the picnic area like little bumblebees, humming along. It is a great way to close the year. This is the Director’s speech marking the ending of one year and looking forward to the next.

What is the best wagon? For us, it has to be this wagon. The Town & Country Little Red Wagon that can! The wagon’s stability, its familiar painted wood, knobby tires, and long metal handle—with just the right amount of resistance and maneuverability—make it more than a tool. It’s a forever item, not for transporting children but for handing them the reins.

The children are playing, imagining, and living outside and all the while the gaining real-life skills. Realia (thank you Froebel) refers to real-life objects, environments, or experiences used in education to make learning more meaningful and tangible. In early childhood, realia goes beyond pictures or simulations—it means children engage directly with the physical world to construct understanding.

Our play yard is a place where hands press into cool earth, feet trace the roughness of wooden beams, and eyes follow the gentle sway of leaves in the breeze. The indoor space will embrace the outdoors as an essential part of learning. We’re creating a space that nurtures children's growth and deepens their sense of belonging, ensuring that every child feels welcomed, seen, and inspired.

The revolutionary nature of collective cooperative care lies in its ability to challenge dominant systems that prioritize individualism, competition, and hierarchical, misguided expertise — in short, the “push down” — in early childhood education. By working cooperatively, a small group of committed individuals can create profound and lasting change—demonstrating that early childhood education flourishes when it is rooted in relationships, shared responsibility, and deep respect for children as capable learners.

Monday morning brings ice to the play yard and classroom floor. This beautiful, changeable, loose part is just the thing we all need on a cold day.

We have been dreaming of a space that will be our forever home. Looking high and low. All we truly had to do was look where our heart is . . . Flower Avenue. We are home.

Our school year begins during the last days of summer here in northern hemisphere, in the Mid-Atlantic state of Maryland.

The streetlights cast long shadows across our “main” street on the evening of the Winter Solstice. It was such a special evening.

Outdoor schools and nature schools — those perceptions are also shaped by stakeholders, advocates, the media, books, and organizations to be quite specific. Look up nature schools and you will see children following trails, in meadows, under a tree canopy, walking in streams in public or private land. The landscapes are large and wide. You will also learn of the benefits offered by outdoor schools.

This is not us.

Listen and learn. “Maybe they forgot their bag,” a child observes in answer to finding yet another pile of dog poop on the lawn where we are playing. This willingness to see a global kindness in others is something often gets lost as we grow older. So now we just bring bags with us to help where we can.

Each day and every class session, all of us, children and adults, look up at the sky, studying each corner. The children have developed a shared language of SKY.

As many early childhood programs across Maryland moved outdoors and our own program moved fully outdoors, we all soon discovered that there actually is such thing as bad weather. The answer, of course, is planning and figuring out how we begin our day in response to ANY kind of weather. In this case, we have something we call “grandmother magic” in crochet blankets and Teresa, our Seeds class teacher, a good bit of Tia magic.

The year winds down. Only a few weeks, a handful of days, left. I’m specifically not counting , but this year’s Tracks class is keeping count in a way that others haven’t. “Is this the last day I play the rhythm,” one asks. I force myself to think. Ada answers, though. She seems better equipped to think of the bittersweet in the beginning/endings, thankfully.

Wonder and awe. These are gifts that will stand for us. They are the things that will bring us comfort and settle us during times we feel stuck and at a loss for how to proceed.

Hands too small to even begin to hold a pencil or pen, delicately pinch tiny bits of sand, measured in grains. Fingers of one hand seek out bits of tiny colored gravel and pebbles, picking these up just so, to collect as treasures in the palm of the other. Sitting at a table and holding pencil will never match time spent “cooking” sand.

I know the power of story, coming and going. The following week, he told me that whenever he is worried he just picks up a worry stone and it takes care of itself. He told me this with the knowledge and skill that this was his very own story. I didn’t tell it, he did.

It happens too many days a week to count; a mother, having just brushed aside a loose piece of their child's hair, weighted down by discarded backpacks, holding animal leashes or items for dinner or tiny colorful rainboots will smile and confide "I'm a bad mom".

Yes, yes, emergent learning took us to the bridge to learn about its great height, its arches, and where it can be found in relation to where we are. We found all that, but let me tell you about the moment that will stay with these children.

String is something that adults attach to boats. And why? We have to be honest with ourselves here — is it because we think the string secures us? Protects us from losing something too precious to let go of? Not just the thing, but the little hand holding it? Is the string a tether that keeps childhood intact? The happiness of never losing a thing? No tears today! There’s this string that will hold us together!

Today it rained. People wonder about the rain. Summer and Fall rain is one thing, but today it was a Winter rain. Today, I told the children as they arrived bundled up and rain resistant ready, today is a 100% rain. It wasn’t going to stop.

Where are we going? Outside! We believe that access to nature should be the right of every child, but in truth, every child cannot access nature.

The edges of the street and sidewalk read like urban nature headlines. Big, bold print calls our attention to all the stories happening in the neighborhood.