We Call This “The Outside In”

This time of year, the light shifts quickly. Mornings arrive with a soft chill, and afternoons lean quietly toward dusk. For our children, though, these short days still begin the same way they always do—outdoors, in the place where their breath mingles with the cold air and their imaginations warm the space between them.

Starting outside shapes everything that follows.

Seeing (and experiencing) the world in a whole new way.

When children walk into the play yard along the stepping stone pathway to hang up their backpacks, they awaken. They feel the crisp edges of the season. Twigs snap differently, everything sounds different without the hush of overhead leaves. Breath becomes visible a wisp of a story written on air. Children gather what they find, not always with their hands but with their attention: the sudden red-fiery brightness of a cardinal, a question about wind, the rhythm of running to stay warm. We encourage the hush when we all pause to listen.

And then, later, much later, we go inside.

Carrying these outdoor discoveries across the threshold changes the indoors. The mudroom fills with the smell of the outdoors. The warmth feels earned. And something subtle happens: the children settle more deeply. Their bodies have stretched, climbed, balanced, reached. Their senses are wide open.

A forest takes shape in hand and heart.

Small indoor moments, ones that might have felt ordinary otherwise, suddenly breathe anew.

The soft rug becomes a forest floor to continue a story that began our trees. Large wool leaves transforms into the fairy shelter the children imagined building outside. A page in a book mirrors the map they imagined earlier. Even the quiet feels different. It’s not just the quiet of being indoors; it’s the quiet that follows meaningful movement, connection, and exploration.

This “Outside In” rhythm is simple, but it reshapes our days.

Outdoors, children start wide and expansive. Indoors, they gather close. Outdoors, they explore possibilities. Indoors, they refine them. Outdoors, they warm themselves with motion. Indoors, they warm themselves with belonging.

Greeting a neighbor.

As winter edges nearer and the daylight narrows, this movement between worlds becomes even more precious. It allows the season’s short days, chilled air, glowing windows, to guide our pace.

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.

Shoes lined up all in a row!