Outdoor-Based Preschool & Kindergarten
Our outdoor-based preschool & kindergarten program is specially tailored for children ages 3 years to 6 years. During these classes our knowledgeable teachers will guide students in:
- Positive social and emotional development (self-awareness, self-regulation, self-motivation, empathy, and social skills)
- Wellness (self-care, and resilience)
- Acquisition and use of knowledge and skills (social, cognitive, academic, physical, linguistic, emotional, problem solving, critical thinking, and environmental)
- Use of appropriate behaviors to meet their adaptive, social, emotional, and cognitive needs.
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Tuition & Fees
Worldmind Nature Immersion School is a non-profit organization dependent upon tuition for funds to pay highly qualified staff salaries and operating expenses. Upon enrollment parents are responsible for payment of tuition each month. It is understood that no reduction or refund will be offered for absence or withdrawal during the month.
Full-Day Options
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City Park, Denver
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Jefferson County (Location TBD)
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Half-Day Options
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City Park, Denver
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Jefferson County (Location TBD)
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Before and After School Options
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Before School
(No before school programs during the months of January and February)
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After School
(After school programs will run year round)
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Discounts
Sibling Discount - For 2 or more children from the same household enrolled there is a 10% discount.
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Curriculum
Worldmind Forest School Curriculum
The Worldmind curriculum helps connect children to the dynamic ecological systems in Colorado through a series of season-based units that prescribe carefully crafted learning experiences. This pedagogy helps children and families address past, present, and future ecological issues, and enhances their understanding of an interconnected ecological system. Our curriculum is research-based and provides developmentally appropriate activities in nature so that children and their families can master and integrate ecological awareness into their lives.
Emergent Curriculum
Emergent curriculum focuses on the process of learning that emerges from the children. It is designed to be open-ended and self-directed in order to meet the needs and interests of every child. It relies on teacher initiative and student’s intrinsic motivation. The components of an emergent curriculum are: children’s interests, teachers’ interests, developmental tasks, things in the physical environment, people in the social environment, curriculum resource materials, unexpected events, living together: conflict resolution, care giving, and routines, values help in the school and community, family and culture.
The Worldmind curriculum helps connect children to the dynamic ecological systems in Colorado through a series of season-based units that prescribe carefully crafted learning experiences. This pedagogy helps children and families address past, present, and future ecological issues, and enhances their understanding of an interconnected ecological system. Our curriculum is research-based and provides developmentally appropriate activities in nature so that children and their families can master and integrate ecological awareness into their lives.
Emergent Curriculum
Emergent curriculum focuses on the process of learning that emerges from the children. It is designed to be open-ended and self-directed in order to meet the needs and interests of every child. It relies on teacher initiative and student’s intrinsic motivation. The components of an emergent curriculum are: children’s interests, teachers’ interests, developmental tasks, things in the physical environment, people in the social environment, curriculum resource materials, unexpected events, living together: conflict resolution, care giving, and routines, values help in the school and community, family and culture.
Daily Learning Activities
Worldmind Nature Immersion School offers a variety of researched based activities that have many developmental benefits and will help all participants connect to the world around them.
Nature Journal
Nature journaling involves stimulating curiosity about the world around us. It helps develop a sense of place and human’s role in that place. A nature journal can help all people from children to adults find a place in which to discover a connection or even a relationship with the natural spaces around them. Nature journaling involves stopping and watching how something works and recording it through writing, drawing and collecting. We will use nature journals daily to help all participants record their observations, perceptions, and feelings about the natural world around them.
Sit Spots
Sit spots go hand-in-hand with nature journals. During each session all participants will have time to sit by themselves and be with their surroundings. We teach you to use your senses to observe what it going on around you and encourage you to record your observations, thoughts, and feelings.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the practice of nurturing a focused awareness on the present. This is a growing practice that has been shown to help reduce stress, improve sleep quality, and heighten focus. We live in a fast paced world and children are facing higher levels of stress starting at a young age. Mindfulness is a life-long practice that can help people of all ages manage the stresses that life throws at us. We practice mindfulness through a series of exercises every morning and encourage all participants to use it as needed throughout the day.
Yoga
Nature and yoga go hand-in-hand. The messages of yoga- kindness, respect and empowerment are messages that can help us understand and care for the natural world. At the end of a yoga class, we say “Namaste” to one another which means the teacher in me sees and respects the teacher in you. That phrase can be applied to the environment as a valuable teacher in children’s lives. Incorporated with our mindfulness approach, all participants will be exposed to the practice of yoga at their developmentally appropriate level. Children will be able to explore using their bodies in new ways to develop strength, flexibility and coordination.
Mathematics
We incorporate a variety of different mathematical concepts into our activities daily. There are a variety of math skills that emerge on a daily basis; some are prompted by the children and others by the instructors or accompanying adult. A few examples are: adding, subtracting, and sorting objects that have been collected in nature, measuring rain and snowfall, and finding shapes in nature.
Science
A number of different scientific concepts emerge throughout the day. For example, children naturally discover that objects have properties and characteristics. Through free exploration and observation children start to understand cause-and-effect relationships, that living things have characteristics and basic needs and they develop in predictable patterns, movements of objects in the sky, and weather and seasonal patterns.
Geography
Through our thoughtfully designed and researched based curriculum students and adults get to experience the areas in which they live in a new and exciting way. Students are given opportunities to map where they have been and every day students practice navigation skills.
Nature Art
Participants are given the opportunity daily to draw in their nature journals. Facilitators also lead lessons on making art out of sticks, rocks, dirt, berries, flowers, leaves, and various other natural medium that we find throughout the day.
Imaginative Play
Throughout the day children are given ample time for unstructured play. Facilitators and other adults present my also lead children in imaginative games like: pretend to be a plant that is growing or think of your favorite animal and become that animal.
Music
Music is all around you in nature. We use various sounds found in nature to create music throughout the day.
Literacy
Vocabulary is a key component of reading and writing development. Studies have shown that free play in nature can significantly enhance children’s vocabulary development. We have a story time daily and children practice writing and drawing in their nature journals.
Nature Journal
Nature journaling involves stimulating curiosity about the world around us. It helps develop a sense of place and human’s role in that place. A nature journal can help all people from children to adults find a place in which to discover a connection or even a relationship with the natural spaces around them. Nature journaling involves stopping and watching how something works and recording it through writing, drawing and collecting. We will use nature journals daily to help all participants record their observations, perceptions, and feelings about the natural world around them.
Sit Spots
Sit spots go hand-in-hand with nature journals. During each session all participants will have time to sit by themselves and be with their surroundings. We teach you to use your senses to observe what it going on around you and encourage you to record your observations, thoughts, and feelings.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the practice of nurturing a focused awareness on the present. This is a growing practice that has been shown to help reduce stress, improve sleep quality, and heighten focus. We live in a fast paced world and children are facing higher levels of stress starting at a young age. Mindfulness is a life-long practice that can help people of all ages manage the stresses that life throws at us. We practice mindfulness through a series of exercises every morning and encourage all participants to use it as needed throughout the day.
Yoga
Nature and yoga go hand-in-hand. The messages of yoga- kindness, respect and empowerment are messages that can help us understand and care for the natural world. At the end of a yoga class, we say “Namaste” to one another which means the teacher in me sees and respects the teacher in you. That phrase can be applied to the environment as a valuable teacher in children’s lives. Incorporated with our mindfulness approach, all participants will be exposed to the practice of yoga at their developmentally appropriate level. Children will be able to explore using their bodies in new ways to develop strength, flexibility and coordination.
Mathematics
We incorporate a variety of different mathematical concepts into our activities daily. There are a variety of math skills that emerge on a daily basis; some are prompted by the children and others by the instructors or accompanying adult. A few examples are: adding, subtracting, and sorting objects that have been collected in nature, measuring rain and snowfall, and finding shapes in nature.
Science
A number of different scientific concepts emerge throughout the day. For example, children naturally discover that objects have properties and characteristics. Through free exploration and observation children start to understand cause-and-effect relationships, that living things have characteristics and basic needs and they develop in predictable patterns, movements of objects in the sky, and weather and seasonal patterns.
Geography
Through our thoughtfully designed and researched based curriculum students and adults get to experience the areas in which they live in a new and exciting way. Students are given opportunities to map where they have been and every day students practice navigation skills.
Nature Art
Participants are given the opportunity daily to draw in their nature journals. Facilitators also lead lessons on making art out of sticks, rocks, dirt, berries, flowers, leaves, and various other natural medium that we find throughout the day.
Imaginative Play
Throughout the day children are given ample time for unstructured play. Facilitators and other adults present my also lead children in imaginative games like: pretend to be a plant that is growing or think of your favorite animal and become that animal.
Music
Music is all around you in nature. We use various sounds found in nature to create music throughout the day.
Literacy
Vocabulary is a key component of reading and writing development. Studies have shown that free play in nature can significantly enhance children’s vocabulary development. We have a story time daily and children practice writing and drawing in their nature journals.
