Outdoor School Shop got to meet with Nature School parent, Adriane Emig, and ask a handful of questions regarding her and her child's experience attending a 100% outdoor program. We love to gain a parent's perspective on nature schooling and hope you enjoy this interview!
1. Where is your child at school?
During the school year, my daughter, Laurel, was at The Natural Classroom’s Sun Valley Forest School in Ohio! (My son, August, is also a part of The Natural Classroom and enjoys Saturday Forest School at their Wiley Creek location!)
2. How does the school incorporate the outdoors into the program?
At Sun Valley Forest School (and all of The Natural Classroom’s programs), Laurel and her class were outside 100% of the time. The forest is their classroom!
3. How much time is spent outdoors?
All of their time is spent outdoors, regardless of the weather conditions. Their class was three days a week for three hours each day.
4. Has your child had an adjustment period to the outdoor approach?
My children did not have any adjustment period to the outdoor approach. We’ve always enjoyed the outdoors and spent a lot of time slowly exploring and observing from a very young age. My children have always been very curious and very (very!) open to fully immersing themselves in nature, so I’ve always had wet / sticky / muddy children and I’m very grateful for that.
5. Would you characterize your family as “outdoorsy”?
That’s a good question! Our family is outdoorsy in the sense that we are very fond of the outdoors, we are very comfortable outdoors, we fully embrace the idea that there is no such thing as bad weather and we appreciate the peacefulness of outside. We love skiing, hiking and all sorts of outdoor adventures and we also love slow peaceful walks to nowhere in particular and spending hours making nature soup and looking at bugs in the driveway. We’ve been following along with the 1000 Hours Outside movement for three years or so and hit 1,000 hours outside by early October because we really do try to be outside as much as possible. But… we are not a rugged outdoorsy family. And I think it’s a pretty wonderful thing to see my fancy, sparkle-loving five year old climbing trees in a tutu or sitting in a mud puddle with lots of accessories on. You can spend all your time outdoors and come just as you are! It’s amazing!
6. How has outdoor school benefited your child in particular?
Forest School has benefitted our children so, so much and in a myriad of ways. Our daughter is a fast-moving thrill-seeker and her time outdoors has reinforced the idea that she is in control of her body and she’s learned to assess and manage the risks she takes. At the same time, I think it’s been beneficial for her to have all that time outdoors with her amazing facilitators because it’s also taught her to slow down a little and to observe and appreciate all the little things around her. And that’s not easy to do when you love to go, go, go.
I’ll also add in that our son (who spent his kindergarten year at Forest School and continues to go on Saturdays) who is far more cautious and risk-averse also benefitted greatly from the risk management involved in outdoor school. It was amazing to watch him grow and to trust himself and gain so much physical strength from his time spent in the forest.
Both of our children had excellent fine motor skills from all of their time spent in Forest School at a young age and I am always in awe of their curiosity, knowledge, strength and resiliency - all of which I know grew incredibly during their time at outdoor school.
7. Did you pivot from traditional school to outdoor school? Maybe from one child to another, and if, yes, what was that decision process like?
We didn’t have to pivot from traditional school, per se, because our children were still young. But during the pandemic and the whole in-person/hybrid/virtual thing, we deliberated for quite some time to figure out what would be best for our family and we are so grateful for how things turned out. August was starting kindergarten in the fall of 2020 and we ended up doing virtual kindergarten (through our public school) for two hours each morning and then he spent his afternoons at Forest School. We often say Forest School is the best thing that could’ve ever happened to us at that time!
8. Was it hard to find an outdoor school in your area? How did you approach your search? Did you utilize the free ODSS Outdoor School Directory to find your program?
It wasn’t a hard search for us, personally. We took part in Tinkergarten when our children were each really young and one of our favorite Tinkergarten instructors co-founded The Natural Classroom. So we were very lucky. However, I have crossed paths with quite a few people who are so curious about our Forest School experience and just had no idea outdoor school was a thing. I think your Outdoor School directory sounds like it would be such a great resource!
9. How have friends & family reacted to your choice to embrace outdoor education?
We’ve had nothing but positive reactions to our choice to embrace outdoor education. In this fast-paced world, I don’t think anyone blames us for wanting to hold on to the peacefulness and the simplicity of the outdoors and for wanting to give our children as much time as we can immersed in nature. We find a lot of people are curious about what the day-to-day looks like (especially the really cold or really rainy days, ha!) and I think they would be in awe of how amazing and engaging the outdoor classroom spaces are- they’re incredible!
10. Has it been difficult to find the right outerwear to keep your child happy, warm and engaged at outdoor school? How has ODSS been a resource for you in terms of gear?
Because we’ve spent a lot of time outside in all types of weather since our children were young, we had a good idea of what worked and what our children liked best. Really good gear is so essential and we are so grateful we found ODSS because we could find a lot of our favorite things all in one place! We’ve gotten hats of varying thickness from ODSS, we’ve gotten waterproof gear that is actually waterproof, we’ve gotten all types of gloves and mittens (that our daughter can put on herself which is so important), we’ve gotten our tick sprays that we needed for outdoor summer camps and our favorite socks time and time again.
One of my first favorite things about shopping at ODSS is that I was so happy to find colorful gear - like hats and mittens - because often times you can only find dark, boring colors haha! Our Forest School warned us that everyone often has the same black mittens and so it’s harder to keep track of things, so I was thrilled to find hot pink and tie-dye stuff for my “fancy” five year old! Kids shouldn’t have to sacrifice their sense of style to stay warm or dry at outdoor school ;)
