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Engaging with Our Minnesota Environment

Outdoor education is an extension of the classroom into our natural environment. A place of discovery, curiosity and experimentation, outdoor education helps students move through the outdoors with confidence and appreciation. They explore how the building blocks of life emerge and change. That includes themselves!

Similar to the indoor classroom, nature education is also child-centered, self-directed and intentional with guidance, aligned with Montessori principles. We encourage exploration as well as care. This could include stopping to notice sounds or tidying up outdoor spaces for the next visitor.

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Sunny Hollow pre-schooler girl standing outdoors next to goose painting.

Toddlers Collect & Compare

Toddlers are present in their environment. We practice movement and vocabulary development. We engage in collections and size comparisons to help toddlers experience themselves within nature.

Little girl holding a picture she created.

Preschoolers Help & Name

Preschoolers may engage in growing and gardening activities and learn about different aspects of soil, water and plant life. We answer questions such as, “What’s happening?” and we learn about time and space through the five senses and Minnesota’s different seasons and weather.

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Elementary Notices & Applies

From our studies of botany to math and zoology, elementary students take their indoor classroom learnings outdoors. If we are studying the Fibonacci sequence, we may collect and paint pinecones to view the spiral in nature. From field trips to hikes and nature journaling, we notice, wonder and remember.

Campers on bridge

Middle School Experiments & Integrates

By middle school, students are working on themes that integrate their lessons in physical sciences through outdoor experiments and applications.

We may walk to the Mississippi River and learn about Ph balances and native plant life that supports healthy waterways. We may have a geology day and focus on the formations, fossils and geologic history of the region. Students lead our exploration and wondering as they build upon a two-year cycle of learning — indoors and out.

Answering questions about how we care for the environment and benefit from it will encompass our learnings at all program levels. We take the opportunity to enjoy nearby natural features such as Minnehaha Falls, Hidden Falls, Shadow Falls and much more.