We made the decision last spring to enroll our child in forest school. It has been a little bit of a learning curve, but it has been well worth it. Our kiddo has absolutely bloomed playing outdoors three days a week with children his own age. When we first started, he was only going two days a week, and we had kept up with his gym classes at the same time. But the benefits of forest school trumped the benefits of gym class by miles. Part of this is very much our child’s temperament.
We originally chose to do forest school in part because of the drop-off nature of the program. With full day preschool coming soon, we wanted to get him into a program that would allow him to get used to being dropped off. Plus, with forest school, our child would get to spend three hours outside playing with sticks, in the dirt, climbing trees. And I would get three hours to sit in a coffee shop, drinking coffee, reading a book, updating this blog – without a toddler climbing on top of me.
This is not to say we didn’t love gym class. But we were quickly discovering that while gym was a great activity and it certainly helped get our child’s energy out, it did not give me a much needed break during the day. The gym classes required a parent or guardian be on the floor with the child. This is great when your child first is adjusting to a class like that, and it helps to have a parent show the kid what they should be doing. But it also does not encourage socializing between kids, which was the whole reason we signed up for a gym class in the first place. The kids socialize with the adult who brought them. The only time this seems to change is when the kids are brought by a nanny, or when you have an open practice with older kids and the older kids do the interacting.
Forest school has allowed my child to break out of their shell and make friends. It has also allowed for truly authentic play. The program we use is child-led for the most part. The kids choose the activity for the first and last hour, with a snack time in the middle. The snack time is also when they read books together and then try mindfulness exercises like animal yoga. In the time our child has been in the program he has blossomed from the youngest and shiest child to one of the leaders, looking after the other kids and suggesting activities to the group. They come home talking about who their friends are and what they got up to during the day.
The other benefit to forest school is getting used to playing outside in all weather conditions. Once you’ve found the right clothes for being outside in the rain, it’s hard to say, “Well, it’s raining today. Let’s just stay inside.” You get rain gear for your kid. You get rain gear for you. You go outside. Seeing your kid having fun splashing in puddles and climbing under trees in the rain is just one more adventure. And yes, you’ll find yourself buying rain gear for yourself. The picture attached to this post came from going to the zoo on a rainy day. It was an awesome experience, and knowing that we could still have an awesome time regardless of the weather made it even more fun to experience the zoo with less people around.