At nature-based preschool, kids learn outside rain or shine

After Painted Oak Nursery School in Hopewell expanded to a larger facility in September, 43 families enrolled children in the nature-based preschool.

HOPEWELL TOWNSHIP -- While many preschoolers are read stories about camping while sitting around a colorful rug in a classroom, this school instructs their kids to load their backpacks, pack the "wood wagon" and prepare to hike.

At Painted Oak Nursery School, Founding Director Nicole Langdo said educators focus on getting children outside everyday no matter the weather, rain or shine - with the only exception being if temperatures drop to single digits.

"We allow children in our program to climb trees, play with sticks, wade in the creek and make many a mud pie within a risk-assessed, teacher-supervised situation," Langdo said.

Painted Oak Nursery School preschoolers hike through the woods in nature-immersion program.Courtesy of Nicole Langdo 

In September, she said the school expanded from a 2,400-square-foot indoor building with a playground in Pennington to a 4,000-square-foot indoor facility with "225 preserved acres to explore at will."

The school on Lambertville-Hopewell Road is on the Rambling Pines Day Camp site.

This move allowed Langdo to expand on the nature-immersion program within the school, called the Forest School program, which gets the children - ranging in age from 2 to 6 - outside every day possible.

"Our Forest School program is the heart of our school," Langdo said. "Forest school begins with gearing up according to the weather, packing our backpacks with water bottles and extra socks, loading the 'woods wagon' with supplies for the morning, including mint or chamomile tea that we add pine needles to for extra Vitamin C, and lining up on the hike line."

Langdo said she opened the school in 2012 while focusing on a nature-based "Reggio Emilia approach to learning" - meaning lessons are driven by the children's interests, curiosities and questions.

"Since our start we have always taken the children outside no matter the weather," Langdo said. "Initially we kept to our playground and walks around our surrounding sidewalk community of Pennington."

She said lessons are always documented through photographs, narrative observations and recorded conversations with the children.

Langdo said after positive results were seen in the children's behavior and positive feedback was heard from parents, "despite the many bags of muddy laundry being sent home at the end of each rainy day," Painted Oak extended time outside and areas where they explore.

"The more habitats we have to explore, the better," she said. "On our current campus we have fields to track animals, ponds with fish, frogs and dragonflies, a creek with crayfish under every rock and of course a huge forest with trees ripe for climbing."

Langdo said the school went from serving six children in its first year to enrolling 43 families for the current school year on the Rambling Pines campus.

"We have observed increased levels of self-esteem, independence and confidence," Langdo said since expanding on time and space outdoors.

And although Langdo said she was "fine and dandy" at their Pennington location, when Rambling Pines Day Camp owner Rob Jordan told her in 2014 they wanted to sell a facility on their land to a school, she jumped on the opportunity.

"When I came and saw their school, with the fields and meadows for the children, it was just a no brainer," Langdo said. Painted Oak officially moved in September 2015 to the new facility with 225 acres of outdoor space.

She said "keeping in mind that they are 3, 4 and 5 years old," children - perusing the Rambling Pine acreage - have learned to gear themselves up to brace whatever weather, walk together in a hike line, setup a base camp and work together on such projects as building a bridge to cross a creek.

"They have a huge amount of knowledge about the natural world," Langdo said. "They can name at least four trees in our forest by leaf and or seed, at least six different birds that fly overhead and their accompanying calls, at least three animals by their tracks and scat and (they) know how to avoid poison ivy, ticks and thorns."

The outdoor instruction lasts at least three hours per day, she said.

"We gently sing as we hike down to base camp to alert the animals we are coming and spend three hours together among the trees - playing, learning, exploring, climbing, singing, reading, creating and cooperating," Langdo said.

Lindsay Rittenhouse may be reached at lrittenhouse@njadvancemedia.com. Find NJ.com on Facebook.