Cedarsong Nature School's Forest Kindergarten has received national and international attention for its unique early childhood education model and has been featured in such diverse media as Sierra Club Magazine, People Magazine , ABC News Nightline, the Associated Press and England's UK Daybreak. Additionally, our Forest Kindergarten program has been featured locally on Evening Magazine , The Seattle Times, and NPR's KUOW .

The following linked news story is a fascinating read and describes
How playing in the dirt could make you smarter.

Additional website resource links regarding the benefits to children from nature immersion:

Children & Nature Network (C&NN)
Recent research shows that children who spend significant time immersed in unstructured play in nature are more relaxed, better at problem-solving and critical thinking, more focussed, and exhibit more cooperative behavior and team work

Benefits - National Wildlife Federation
This website has links to scientific studies that prove the many benefits of spending time in nature, including better eyesight and better standardized test scores!

Transcript | Learning, Doing, Being: A New Science of Education from American Public Radio
This powerful interview by a neuroscientist attests to the underrated educational value of play for young children. Combining unstructured play with a natural outdoor setting turns out to be excellent preparation for later academics. German researchers have found that children who attend a Forest Kindergarten actually perform better on standardized tests when they enter public school than their peers who were pushed into learning numbers and letters at the preschool stage.

Recommended Reference Material

REGARDING NATURE DEFICIT DISORDER:
The Last Child in the Woods
by Richard Louv, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, ©2005

REGARDING FOREST KINDERGARTEN:
Growing Up Wild - Exploring Nature with Young Children
by The Council For Environmental Education, ©2009

Your Big Backyard
Children's nature magazine published by the National Wildlife Federation

A Child's Work - the importance of fantasy play
by Vivian Gussin Paley, University of Chicago Press, ©2004

Place-Based Education
by David Sobel, The Orion Society, ©2004

REGARDING NATURE CAMPS AND HOMESCHOOLING:
Keepers of the Earth - Native American Stories and Wildlife Activities for Children and Keepers of the Animals - Native American Stories and Wildlife Activities
by Caduto and Bruchac, Fulcrum Publishing, ©1997

Project Learning Tree - Environmental Education Activity Guide, PreK-8, American Forest Foundation, ©1994

REGARDING CHILDREN WITH AUTISM:
The Out-of-Sync Child Has Fun - Activities for Kids with Sensory Processing Disorder, by Kranowitz, Penguin Group, ©2003

1001 Great Ideas for Teaching and Raising Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders, by Notbohm and Zysk, Future Horizons, ©2004

REGARDING ETHNOBOTANY:
A Naturalist's Journal
by Erin Kenny, KotaPress, ©2003
Currently Out of Print/Pre-orders for the next edition are being taken now

Discovering Wild Plants:
Alaska, Western Canada, the Northwest
by Janice Schofield, Alaska Northwest Books, ©1989

Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast:
Washington, Oregon, British Columbia & Alaska
by Pojar and MacKinnon, B.C. Ministry of Forests and Lone Pine Publishing, ©1994

Northwest Herb Talk on Voice of Vashon
Goldmyer Hot Springs
Samarya Center
GreenHour.Org
Autism Center

Nature Deficit Disorder

By ERIN KENNY ©2008 all rights reserved

I am proud of the fact that my 4-year-old can identify a whole host of edible plants and tell you which ones are poisonous and which ones we make into medicine. We spend a lot of time outdoors, not only because I love it but also because I have always intuitively believed kids need to spend a significant amount of time outside every day to stay balanced. Lucky for me, my mother was fond of saying, "It's too nice to be inside; you kids need to play outside." We would all then end up spending hours in nature: exploring, building, examining, climbing and creating elaborate games without structure or adult supervision. Our feet on the earth, breathing fresh air, surrounded by trees and plants, we felt at home in the great outdoors.

Today, kids are spending significantly less time outside than in any previous generation. The statistics are shocking. According to the organization Playing for Keeps, more than 80 percent of children under age 2 and more than 60 percent between the ages of 2 and 5 do not have access to daily outdoor play. And just what is replacing outdoor time? According to a Kaiser Family Foundation study, the average American child spends 44 hours per week (more than six hours a day) staring at some kind of electronic screen, with the average 2-year-old spending more than four hours a day in front of a TV or computer screen.

I first heard the term Nature Deficit Disorder when I read Richard Louv's seminal book, Last Child in the Woods. One of the primary symptoms of the disorder is the replacement of the green space by the screen space as the occupier of children's free time. In his book, Louv makes the rather convincing argument that most children today do not have the kind of exposure to nature that leads to empathy for the natural world, and studies have found that leading environmentalists all had a conspicuous background of direct experience with nature as children. Louv is careful to distinguish between structured and unstructured outdoor time, and he is specifically decrying the lack of unstructured time that kids today have compared to their parents' generation.

According to the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), children who regularly spend unstructured time outside play more creatively; have lower stress levels and more active imaginations; become fitter and leaner; develop stronger immune systems; experience fewer symptoms of attention deficit disorder (ADD) or attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD); and have greater respect for themselves, for others and for the environment. Consequently, the NWF has started promoting the concept of the "green hour", the idea that children need a casual hour outdoors each day in the same way they need a good night's sleep or a vitamin.

In its March/April 2004 issue, Psychology Today published the results of a study which found that spending time in ordinary green settings, such as parks, farms or grassy backyards , reduces symptoms of ADHD when compared to time spent at indoor playgrounds and man-made recreation areas of concrete and asphalt. The researchers recommended that children with ADHD spend some quality after-school hours and weekend time outdoors enjoying nature.

Lawmakers are beginning to understand the importance of outdoor time and are attempting to institutionalize the concept. Legislation was recently introduced in both the U.S. House and Senate that strengthens and expands environmental education in America's classrooms and reconnects children with nature. These two bills, both titled the No Child Left Inside Act of 2007 (H.R. 3036 / S. 1981), provide federal funding to states to train teachers in environmental education and operate model environmental education programs, which include outdoor learning.

For myself, I often forget that there are people who regularly do not spend time outdoors, just doing nothing. It has always been so much a part of my daily routine, and I know it nourishes me. Recent research has supported what I have suspected all along: It is vitally important to your children's physical and mental health to spend quality time outdoors every day.