The Bluff, the upper level of our outdoor courtyard, includes our water play space with a hand water pump, sluice, and boat, our mud kitchen, and our sand play area. Each space invites imaginative play that also develops problem-solving skills, math concepts (like capacity and volume), fine motor skills, and emotional literacy. 

Part outdoor classroom, part woodchip/lava pit, part building space. The Riverside is home to collaborative fort making, gross motor skill development, heavy work activities, creative game development, and a lot of laughter! TCS students have built teeter-totters, multi-room forts, gaga ball pits, epic obstacle courses, and wonderful friendships here. 

Our front yard on Oak Park Avenue holds a raised garden bed (thanks to a grant from Deep Roots Project) and a pocket prairie (thanks to a grant from West Cook Wilds Ones).  The TCS community comes together to plant, water, and care for our gardens as our students learn about life cycles, native plants, food insecurity, conservation, and eco-justice.

We work toward weekly class trips to the woods to spark children's imagination, creativity, and sense of wonder. Free play and exploration in nature develop observational skills, an appreciation for life and the environment. Group time in the woods builds collaboration and leadership ability. Students also help the forest preserve district in stewardship activity, cleaning out opportunistic plants and litter.

Class field trips to botanic gardens, green industries and architecture, agricultural co-ops, and more, are often part of our school year. This demonstrates to our students the wider applications an understanding of nature can bring to community building, solving today's problems, and new career opportunities.

Classrooms are indoor venues for sprouting new plants, caring for a class pet, hatching butterflies and praying mantises, or raising trout minnows for conservation studies. Nature sciences frequently form the foundation of both group and individual project work. Whenever possible, teachers look for ways to integrate related nature studies and environmental stewardship into project topics.

MEET Lea Schweitz,PhD, Our Nature Play and Outdoor Space ExperT 

Ms. Lea’s (she/hers) training as a nature play educator was formed in a variety of classrooms. As a high schooler, she was a Ranger Rick mentor for kids exploring the nature preserves of her Northern Illinois hometown. In college, she was a teaching and research assistant in remnant and restored tallgrass prairies of the Midwest. After graduate school, she taught adult learners philosophy, theology, ethics, and religion and science at the University of Chicago, Lutheran School of Theology, and the Zygon Center of Religion and Science.  
 

These experiences formed her deep commitment to providing access and opportunity for kids (and the adults who love them) to play and learn outside. For the past five years, her focus has been on nature play and outdoor education. At The Children’s School, this has included collaboratively building out the school’s nature play space. As Director of Children’s Ministries at Urban Village Church-West, she is innovating ways to bring healing nature play into faith formation. At Nature120, it includes supporting neurodiverse groups in nature play outings, developing community programs for kids and families to learn to play and breathe better outside, and designing backyard outdoor play spaces.

Links & Resources on Nature-Based Play and Learning

The Children's School of Oak Park: Nature-Play on a Paved Courtyard and a Tiny Budget (Goric Blog)

 www.childrenandnature.org

www.greenschoolyards.org

"The Overprotected Kid" (The Atlantic)

"The Politics of Play" (Orion Magazine)

Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv

The Colors of Nature: Culture, Identity and the Natural World by Alison Deming and Lauret Savoy

The Sense of Wonder by Rachel Carson

The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier and More Creative by Florence Williams

How to Teach a Kid to Safely Climb a Tree

City Children Have Better Mental Health and Cognition if they live near a woodland