Our outdoor classroom

There are many reasons to bring children out into nature including to give them an opportunity to play with “natural toys” such as sticks, pine cones, sea shells and tree bark, an opportunity to breathe fresh air, witness the marvels of the natural world, increase the child’s power of observation and to calm them and to work out extra energy.

Happy Day Childcare & Preschool offer both indoor and outdoor free play time. Free play is play that is not directly lead or organized by an adult or caregiver. When children spend time outdoors, without toys or electronic gadgets, they find creative things to do utilizing the natural “toys” around them.  This fosters creative imagination. 

When children are left free to create, it is remarkable to witness the elaborate macro-structures they build. When they build with fallen trees or limbs, the children are using gross-motor movements and muscles, are working hard and are generally in collaboration with classmates, which fosters communication, flexibility in thinking, teamwork and problem solving.  One of the benefits of this type of hard work is that it build “will-forces”, the ability to “stick with it” when faced with challenges, a skill that serves our students for the rest of their lives.

Breathing fresh air has health benefits. In the article entitled “Here's Why a Walk in The Woods or a Dip in The Ocean Is So Great For Your Health”, authors Jeffrey Craig and Susan L.Prescott explain that we breathe in beneficial bacteria, plant-derived essential oils and negatively-charged ions, ions which may influence mental outlook in beneficial ways, whenever we are in forests or by bodies of water, which increases our physical and mental well-being.  They even went so far as to say, “There is increasing evidence that we can help shape our children’s mental and physical health by exposing them to more green environments as they work, rest and play.” 

We want to help our children become observers because seeing is one way people learn. Being in outdoors provides children, (and adults), wonderful opportunities to pay attention and to notice.  When children discover something for themselves, it is amazing and memorable.

When children often spend time outdoors, they begin to notice changes in their surrounds that happen with the change of seasons, for example, or the change in light depending on the time of day or angle of the sun.  It is truly a magical experience to observe a child who spies a dew-covered spider web catching the early rays of the sun or who is so moved upon finding a tiny, young salamander, they weep.

Natural environments offer us a chance to relax and recover from noise and to witness the awe of nature and witness beauty.  

There are many benefits to being outdoors.  Rachel Carlson, in Silent Spring stated, "Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. ... There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature - the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter."  My advice is to spend time in nature with children. It will do them, and you, some good. So go for a walk, take a hike or swim in a river, pond or ocean and notice the benefits of being outdoors.

Happy Day’s classrooms are outdoors full time from Spring-until the end of fall.

We start our gardens, have water play, create art, and more!

we of course go outside all year round!

weather permitting. Heavy rain, heavy windstorms, and freezing temperatures. That when we bring the outdoors in and learn about winter weather, animals, plants, and more!

We offer rainsuites to play in the rain come winter!