The Mountain's Edge: An Education for these Times

Where young children are invited into relationships of love, care, and interdependence with the natural world, with one another, and with all humans.

A Day’s Rhythm

Like nature, our program follows rhythms and cycles, not timed schedules. To support young children, we provide consistent and predictable flows to the day, with room to be responsive to the real time needs and interests of the children, and the real time unfolding of the natural world around us. In our three learning places, and with the rhythms of nature as our primary teacher, we learn through:

  • nature immersion: being among the trees, the bird songs, the changing weather, the mud, etc
  • rich imaginative play in our bright indoor classroom, full of beautiful materials and diverse representation in books & toys
  • open-ended explorations that follow the children’s questions and interests, that could unfold over days, weeks, or even months
  • weaving early literacy and math skills into the children’s work and play
  • developing nature literacy: learning how to “read” the land, the animals, the plants, the weather throughout the changing seasons in this specific place
  • stories and songs
  • crafts
  • practicing self (and community) help skills, such as toileting, dressing oneself, caring for our spaces by cleaning up together after play and meals, and caring for one another (such as helping each other dress to go outside)
  • growing, harvesting and preparing food: tending to our herb garden, making sun-tea, baking bread, fermenting vegetables, making nut butters, etc

A day may look like:

Upon arrival you are invited to accompany your child to the Knoll, where we begin our day with nature play. This is a time for the children to play and explore whatever interests them: building with log blocks, playing in the mud kitchen, climbing on the slide and hay bales, digging in the dirt, gardening, etc. It is a time for the teachers to observe what is engaging each child, and to find ways of inviting them into deeper relationships with each other and the natural world. After nature play, we gather together for song, story, and an organic homemade snack (either on the Knoll or in the Nest, weather depending). After snack and toileting, we head up the Mountain for a nature adventure, traveling up on foot or wagon, and encountering the plant, insect, bird, and animal life. We return to end the day with lunch together.