“Passion is lifted from the earth itself by the muddy hands of the young; it travels along grass-stained sleeves to the heart.”
— Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder

Being outdoors is a magical experience. Even as adults, we love to “get away from it all.” We often spend lots of money so we can go relax on a beach, camp, hike, or sit on a porch in the mountains. We crave getting back to nature. It helps us forget about the mundane aspects of life:  bills, work, to do lists…

Recently, the early childhood field has seen an uptick in “nature schools” in which the outdoors is the classroom. At my last preschool in San Francisco, many of the children had limited outdoor space at their homes. Those who did often had small, shared, or hardscaped backyards. Thankfully, San Francisco has a great parks system and we took advantage of that. Nature wasn’t our everyday classroom, but at least once a week, our classes didn’t meet at our schoolhouse; we spent the day exploring in one of the city’s beloved parks.

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