Carp Ridge Forest Preschool

& Kindergarten

carpridgelearningcentre.ca

info@carpridgelearningcentre.ca

613-839-1179

MEDIA KIT

Children will play outside all day, rain or shine, in warm or wintry weather at Canada’s first outdoor preschool.

The Carp Ridge Forest Preschool promises its students few com orts like plastic toys, climate control, or electric power when it opens in about two months in Ottawa’s rural western outskirts.

Instead, it boasts a garden, trails through the woods, and a tent-like shelter called a yurt, and aims to help children aged three to six connect with nature.

Marlene Power-Johnston, the school’s coordinator said she was inspired to start the preschool while trying to find daycare for her 22-month-old daughter, Hazel Avery Johnston.

“What I was really disenchanted by in other preschools was the lack o natural play space,” said Power-Johnston. “The toys, the activities and the environment [are] institutionalized, and also very manu actured.”

Power-Johnston learned that outdoor preschools have existed for decades in Germany, Denmark, the U.K., and Ireland, and decided to try the idea in Canada.

“I really wanted my child to grow up with environmen-tal principles. . . to be able to connect to nature and to grow that connection and the love for nature and from that connection,” she said.

On Wednesday, Power-Johnston o ered a tour o the

preschool site at the Carp Ridge Ecowellness Centre, which features a natural health clinic and a learning centre surrounded by 77 hectares o woodland.

Accompanied by Hazel, who was dressed in red rubber boots and a bright yellow raincoat, she led the way along a lea y path among the trees toward the school’s yurt, a tent-like shelter in the woods that will be used for storytime or naps. En route, Hazel stopped several times to collect stones and acorns.

The Ecowellness Centre building itsel will be used by the preschool during lightning storms or i the temperature drops below -10C, and will give its 10 students access to modern washrooms.

But most activities will take place outdoors or inside the yurt.

Power-Johnston said sta will do a sa ety check on the children daily to make sure the kids are dressed appropriately for the weather, and will counsel parents on what their children should wear.

As Power-Johnston was speaking to a CBC reporter, Hazel dodged back outside into the rain.

Her mother noted that most children, like Hazel, don’t complain about the weather, and European outdoor preschools actually have less access to shelter than hers will.

“Some o these societies. . . are a lot less risk averse

Kids to face, embrace elements all day long at outdoor preschool CBC NEWS cbc.ca

Forest preschools allow young children to enjoy and learn from Nature in an unpressured outdoor environment.

by Jenni er Gautreau

As I drive this winding bit o country road, a forested ridge rose on my right and fertile farmland drops gently away on my le t. Somewhere on this scenic part o my drive, I begin to feel calmer. I’ve le t the energy o the city behind and entered a simpler, quieter place.

I turn onto a gravel road lined by tall grass that leads to a school in the forest. There are two wood-clad build-ings surrounded by gardens o wild lowers. These simple structures blend into the trees and they are the physical mani estations o the Carp Ridge EcoWellness Centre near Ottawa, Ontario.

It provides all types o services, from naturopathic doc-tors at the Health Clinic to seminars on sustainable building practices in the Learning Centre. These are also the grounds for the Carp Ridge Forest Preschool (CRFP) and that is what brings my and me here every Thursday morning.

The sounds o the forest greet me when I open the car door. I like to stand still for a second and listen to the birds and the crickets. I can feel the weight o the city leave for a while as I sni the air, heavy with the smell o growing things. Every week, I’m thank ul that my son gets to spend part o his day here. It’s through this program that I’ve been introduced to the concept o forest schools, their history and what kind o impact they can have on our children.

The CRFP was the first o it’s kind in Canada but the roots o the forest preschool movement are in Den-mark. There are also many schools in other parts o Scandinavia, Germany and the U.K. Like it’s Euro-pean counterparts, the CFRP maintains a small student-teacher ratio has a child-led learning mandate.

The school’s coordinator, Marlene Power-Johnston, decided to start a forest school a ter working in tradi-tional daycares. “The institutions didn’t feel right for my values. I was absolutely frustrated,” she says. She felt that policies based on measurable outcomes like reading and math were not appropriate for such young children. “There is too much pressure on our young

and also are a lot less a raid about being outdoors in nature,” she said.

Contrary to many parents’ fears, Power-Johnston said forest preschools in Europe report fewer sick days a year than indoor preschools.

Dr. Rachel Colley, an expert in childhood obesity at the Children’s Hospital o Eastern Ontario, said she thinks the forest preschool is an important step in a period when preschoolers are spending more and more time watching TV and using computers.

“We know that connecting with nature and getting out-side is really important for both the physical devel-opment o children, and also their mental health and well-being,” she said, adding that physical activity and healthy li estyle behaviours are ingrained at a very young age.

Power-Johnston expects the Carp Ridge Forest Pre-School to be up and running in two months. As o Wednesday, two families had signed up and more are taking tours this week.

Learning in the Forest

NATURAL LIFE MAGAZINE naturallifemagazine.com

learning environments. Instead, children might use sticks to make letters o the alphabet. They might work together to build a wood birdhouse and then decorate it while sitting on a rock. Then they monitor the little home to see i any birds move in.

But perhaps the most important tenet found in most forest school philosophies is the child-centred approach. This is integral to fostering a child’s love o learning and empowerment. Small student-teacher ratios enable sta to honor the creative energies o the children. I a child wants to check out what’s on top o a rock outcropping, then the group sets o and a new adventure begins. O ten, decisions about what to do next are made as a group.

Group tasks like bridge building are a good example. One day at the CRFP, one o the students wanted to cross a little stream without getting his feet wet. So he suggested building a bridge. And they did. Through this activity they learned, by trial and error, what it takes to build a bridge using only what is at hand. They also had to work as a team to get it done. And the tactile skills they used increased their con idence in their bodies while supporting gross motor abilities.

There is a growing body o empirical data to support the anecdotal evidence o those involved in forest pro-grams. The Forestry Commission o Great Britain is the government department responsible for the protection

children. Hands-on experiences are needed, not learn-ing from a book,” she believes.

Once she realized that an alternative was needed, her research led her to authors Richard Louv and Carl Honoré. Their books, ‘Last Child in the Woods’ and ‘Under Pressure’ respectively, helped her to realize that a forest preschool was the right way “to express everything I am passionate about.”

The term “kindergarten” -- children’s garden -- was coined in 1840 by the German Friedrich Foebel. He felt strongly that children needed to be outside as much as possible to develop properly. But, over time, his ideas morphed into what we now think o as traditional mostly indoor school settings.

Then, in 1952, a Danish mother applied Foebel’s origi-nal ideas to teaching her own children. Since then, the idea has spread to include roughly three hundred forest preschools in Denmark alone, fueled by the realization that mainstream systems are failing our children.

In Germany, there are now over seven hundred forest preschools, many o them government subsi-dized. They are also popular in the U.K. and Hungary, where the government requires that all primary school children spend a mandated amount o time in a natural setting.

The forest preschool has many di erent forms. One model has the children outside for most o the day. There is usually a building available for use in times o dangerous weather (i.e. high winds, lightning, or extreme temperatures) but the woods are the main play area. Other models have the kids outside for shorter, speci ic time slots, i , for instance, the pre-school isn’t located within or next to a wild space.

That’s a bit like what I do with my son and the CRFP. We live in an urban community, so I have to drive him a hal hour to the school. Initially, I questioned why I was driving so far just get back to Nature once a week. But a ter spending one morning tromping through the forest with him, my doubts disappeared.

Each forest school has a di erent mandate, but re resh-ingly absent are phrases like “educational instruction”, “school readiness” and “exceeding Ministry require-ments.” Instead, we see words like “wholistic,” “empowerment” and “well-being.” A common thread is using natural objects to learn.

Computers and plastic toys are absent from these

and expansion o Britain’s forests and woodlands. In 2006 and 2007, its Forest Research Centre published results o studying the impact o forest schools on young children. Some o the positive e ects included increased con idence, social skills, and understanding o their environment.

Many o the biggest changes occur with children that are o ten deemed di icult or underachieving by main-stream programs. These kids can succeed because the forest programs look beyond academic per ormance. The Human-Environment Research Laboratory at the University o Illinois has studied the e ect o green outdoor play settings on children labeled with ADHD.

These children are better able to focus and concentrate than those who played indoors or in areas without any greenery. I exposure to green spaces improves symp-toms o ADHD then the converse could be true. As Richard Louv points out, lack o time to play outside in Nature aggravates symptoms and creates a disengaged and disordered child due to what he calls “Nature De i-cit Disorder.”

Watching my son explore a forest with complete con i-

dence, not a raid to turn over rocks and look in holes, listening to him tell me about a blue jay he saw in a birch tree, knowing his creative energies are honored -- these are all important gi ts to our family from the forest school._________________________To start our day in the woods, we sit by a little stream and listen to the sounds around us. Watching kids under the age o five absorbing li e with all their senses is really special. I didn’t think that four little ones could sit quietly for that long, but they surprised me with their patience. And I could sense their stillness. They were actually listening and observing.

Then one o the boys decides we should go for a little walk, so we set o on the path that takes us past the beehives. The Centre keeps it’s own apiary and organic vegetable garden. While we walk, we come across a decomposing animal. The kids gently poke it with a stick and decide it had probably been a mouse. I was really glad the kids were allowed to take the time to investigate a dead animal. They learned about the cycle o li e firsthand, that the forest gives animals a place to live and that dying is an equally important part o the ecosystem.

By Derek Dunn, Associate Editor

A recent National Trust study o 1,651 young people in the U.K. showed that a many as one in two can’t tell the di erence between a bee and a wasp; less than hal recognized a barn owl; 53 per cent recognized an oak lea . Conversely, however, nine out ten could name Star Wars characters like Yoda and Jar Jar Binks.

A U.S. study by the no Child Le t Inside Coalition showed that Americans recognized up to 1,000 corporate logos, but couldn’t name more than 10 common garden plants and animals. In Canada a study by the owners o YTV showed that seven to 12 year olds spent an average 11 hours a day on the internet, television or some form o media.

Enter Carp Ridge Learning Centre, located just outside the village on 76 hectares (190 acres) o land. Or more precisely, exit to the outdoors for the centre’s new pro-gram: Carp Ridge Forest Preschool, possibly Ontario’s first outdoor kindergarten.

Unique daycare gets youngsters back to nature WEST CARLETON EMC

Kids spend day with nature in new ‘forest kindergarten’

Aedan Helmer, Sun Media

Imagine a school where the walls are tree trunks. The floor a carpet o grass and pine needles. The ceiling a canopy o leaves.

That’s the vision behind the Carp Ridge Forest Pre-school, where children spend the majority o their days outside, basking in nature, learning about the environ-ment, engaging in physical activity, and most impor-tantly, having fun.

In place o plastic toys, pine cones.

And the only school uni orms involve rubber boots, or winter coats and mittens.

The preschool, opening this fall for kids aged three to six, is the brainchild o Marlene Power-Johnston.A former supervisor o a more conventional daycare centre, Power-Johnston became disillusioned with the status quo.

“I felt really limited, and also quite sad at the lack o creativity and natural play space within more tradi-tional daycare settings,” says Power-Johnston.

“They’re playing with plastic toys that have limited usage, they have one learning objective, and once the child masters that they have this sense o boredom.

And then the toxins within the environment, the closed spaces, and then i they do have outdoor time, they’re in a fenced-in play structure, and not within the trees and the woods and the natural environment.”

When her daughter Hazel was born two years ago, Power-Johnston began to seek out alternatives.She researched European “ orest kindergarten” models, which have become popular in the U.K., Germany and

“Market research has shown that families are increas-ingly interested in environmental issues, and that par-ents want their children connected to nature,” said Marlene Power-Johnston, coordinator o the forest pre-school that begins at the end o September.

“Our program is for children ages 3 to 6, and it takes place almost exclusively outdoors. All our toys will be made from things we find outside. We’ll learn to make nature-based art, shelter building, gardening, hiking and lots more. But in a very open, sel -directed way.”

Outdoor kindergartens are nothing new in Germany and England where they date back to the 1960’s. How-ever, climate can be a challenge here. The children will be brought inside when the temperature drops below minus 10 degrees Celsius.

Power-Johnson, who is fond o recalling her own child-hood in New oundland, used to work in a traditional daycare setting but decided she wanted more than plastic toys and rigidly structured routines for her own daughter. She said there is some evidence showing that children su ering from “nature de icit disorder” might develop disabilites such as obesity and ADHD.

“They crave the freedom and creativity o playing out-side in an environment that allows them to explore and go on adventures so much that, later on, they tend to rebel against authority, against the whole contained four walls o a computer society,” Power-Johnston said. “There are a lot o good things to learn in traditional daycares, but outdoor kindergartens are actually much closer to the idea that the man who invented kinder-gartens had in mind.”

All outdoors, all the time OTTAWA SUN ottawasun.com

Scandinavian countries.

Early studies there indicate children in forest schools are far less likely to spread germs and get sick. Some reports show children are sick 25 fewer days per year than those in traditional daycares or preschools.

“Because they’re in an outdoor open space, they’re get-ting fresh air and there’s not a closed-in space with lim-ited air low where germs are just spread and spread,” says Power-Johnston.

Lisa Lamarre, manager o Algonquin College’s Early Learning Centre, teaches the importance o outdoor exposure in the college’s early childhood education program.

“No matter what, germs in the indoors stick around a lot longer than i you’re outdoors,” says Lamarre. “The children who do spend a great deal o time out-doors, you will see that their attendance in the pro-gram is much more regular. From a health point o view, having fresh air helps them feel better, sleep better, eat better.”

Lamarre said besides the health and physical bene its, the outdoor environment aids development as well.

“Children are very experiential learners,” she says. “They’re curious, they like to touch and feel and learn through their senses.”

Power-Johnston knows the bene its -- from the appre-ciation o nature to the boost in sel -con idence to the decrease in cases o ADD and ADHD -- but she’s also heard the criticisms.

She’s been fielding dozens o calls from parents over the past few weeks, some o whom are expressing con-cerns about their children being le t at the mercy o the elements.

To put those fears to rest, she explains that the school site -- on a pastoral 190 acres o walking trails at the Carp Ridge Learning Centre north o Carp -- is equipped with a heated schoolhouse with a full service kitchen and washrooms, and an Asian-style canvas tent, called a yurt, for activity and storytelling time.

I the temperature drops below -10c, or in the case o electrical or snow storms, the kids head indoors.The goal, says Power-Johnston, is to combat what she calls “nature de icit disorder.”

“Children are su ering physically through childhood obesity, through a lot more childhood illness, mental illness at younger and younger ages, rebellion, social aggression on playgrounds and in schools,” she says.“And there’s a direct link between children who don’t have the opportunity to be outdoors to have a slower pace o living, and how that impacts them physically, emotionally and socially.”

As countless schools embrace technology, one Cana-dian preschool says it’s going back to the basics. Way back. The Carp Ridge Forest Pre-School o Carp, Ontario, will introduce its all-outdoors, rain-or-shine preschool in early December just in time for blustery weather.

Administrators from the preschool say that outside o lightning storms and temperatures below 14 degrees, 3-to-6-year-olds will bundle up and spend the day tromping through the forest, tending a garden and going on nature hikes.

School coordinator Marlene Power-Johnston criticized typical indoor preschools, telling CBC News, “The toys, the activities, and the environment [are] institutional-ized, and also very manu actured.” Outdoor preschools have existed in Europe for a few decades.

Outdoorsy types THE WORLD MAGAZINE worldmag.com

I am nearing in on the final few hours o a mostly beauti ul fall long weekend. While visiting my parents for Canadian Thanksgiving, I woke up this morning thinking about the Sunday walks that we sometimes took with my dad. We would head out into the woods, exploring the trails, the apple trees along the way, the tall pine forests, the garter snakes, and even an occa-sional broken down old car or bicycle that must have been over 50 years old. I peered out at the houses o my childhood friends, 4 girls about my age that were all a stone’s throw from my home.

We used to spend countless hours in each other’s yards, hiding in the woods, picking berries, riding bicy-cles, climbing trees, catching frogs, discovering old tree forts and getting told to “get lost” by the teenagers who claimed them as their own. But those woods that my dad used to take us walking in are now suburbs, with paved roads, groomed lawns, and sprawling SUVs in the driveway.

So we went o in search o somewhere for a Sunday walk and came to the conclusion that there weren’t a lot o options that didn’t involve either getting in the car to drive to nature or dodging tra ic as we tried to enjoy nature. Un ortunately as we pondered our options and made our plans, the rain set in and being unprepared for the weather we ended up just doing a short trip around a the Eco Museum (an outdoor animal park with local wildli e) instead o a long walk through the trees o the Morgan Aboretum.

In general, we are lucky that we live close to nature. Our kids can play in the dirt, the weeds, the leaves or the snow on our property or they can walk just past our neighbours house to go to the beach and play in the water, throw rocks into the lake, look for frogs, pick berries, and do a lot o the things that I loved as a child. But our time and our space outdoors does still seem more limited than it was when I was a child. Between work and school, errands, and visiting friends (since we don’t live near anyone that we socialize with), it seems there isn’t as much time to just get outside and enjoy nature.

Today’s dilemma about how to get close to nature wasn’t the first time that this issue has occupied my mind. A few years ago, I bought Richard Louv’s book Last Child in the Woods as a gi t for my husband. Louv links the lack o nature in the lives o today’s wired generation to some o the most disturbing childhood trends, such as rising obesity, Attention De icit Disor-der and depression. He calls this phenomenon Nature De icit Disorder: where children like to play indoors better than outdoors “because that is where the elec-trical outlets are”, where parents keep their children indoors because they are worried about the dangers o the outdoors (dirt, weather, predators, etc.), and where we just don’t have time to let our children roam out-side.

Since this is something that is o ten on my mind, I knew that I had to write about it when I heard Marlene

Curing Nature De icit Disorder? Help for our planet?PhD IN PARENTING BLOG phdinparenting.com

Power Johnston on the radio talking about the new Carp Ridge Forest Preschool that is opening this month where the kids will spend all day outdoors! Their press release does a great job o explaining the concept:

OTTAWA, ONTARIO (Marketwire – Sept. 30, 2008) A Yurt will replace a classroom when Canada’s first nature-based preschool for children launches on Octo-ber 1, 2008. Carp Ridge Forest Preschool, situated on 190 acres o land, o ers children aged three to six a chance to play in the woods on a daily basis.

Children will throw in their plastic toys for tree branches and their sneakers for boots, to head out and explore the great outdoors. They’ll do things like hiking, nature cra ts, outdoor yoga, shelter-building, gardening, snowshoeing and much more. In an age where families worry about childhood obesity, over-usage o technology, environmental toxins, and climate change, this program o ers something di erent.

“As a society, we’re greatly impacted by our lack o connection to the outdoors. Children are growing up in manu actured environments where they’re discon-nected from nature, which can lead to all kinds o social issues,” said Marlene Power-Johnston, Coordinator o the Forest Preschool and mother o twenty-two month old Hazel. She became involved with the Ecowellness Centre a ter visiting many preschools in the Ottawa area. She felt disenchanted by the lack o natural space for children to play, and the lack o emphasis on envi-ronmental principles within conventional preschools.

The concept for the Forest Preschool, also known as “Forest Kindergartens,” originated in Europe. The

premise is that the children spend their entire days outdoors, where they move their bodies; explore their imagination and the world in a very hands-on manner. They do this rain or shine, with a building on site for more extreme weather conditions.

The Forest Preschool, runs out o the Carp Ridge Learn-ing Centre, which is a Charitable Organization. They strive to increase children and youths’ access to nature. Subsidies are available to improve program accessibil-ity for families with limited financial resources.

I love the concept! I it wasn’t a two hour drive away, I would de initely consider enrolling my kids there. My son does spend several hours outdoors each day at his preschool, but it is usually in a fenced in play area with play structures and plastic toys and not much in the way o free interaction with nature. They do learn about nature in school and spend some time wander-ing the school grounds looking for leaves and things like that, but it somehow isn’t the same. Makes me that much more determined to make the best o the time we do have together.

Getting kids outdoors frequently and at an early age is crucial in not only overcoming Nature De icit Disor-der, but also in making our kids care about the envi-ronment. Why would you care about something that you don’t value? But beyond getting them to enjoy and value nature, with the rapid toll that climate change is having on our world, we also need to get our kids to care about making changes in the way that we treat our world. We need them to question the way we do things now and come up with creative ways to reduce our carbon footprint.

The Globe and MailBy Hayley Mick

Most Ottawa-area adults dread winter and its accom-panying balaclavas, hunched shoulders and frozen toes.

But starting next week, when doors open at Canada’s first outdoor preschool, winter might mean something else to the region’s children: playing outside.

At the Carp Ridge Forest Preschool, about 38 kilome-tres west o Ottawa, children will stay outdoors -- snow, rain or shine -- all year round. The only indoor reprieve will be during electrical storms, snow squalls or i temperatures plummet below -10.

“Children are resilient,” says Marlene Power-Johnston, 27, a former social worker and head o the program. “It’s a hard thing for us to wrap our heads around because we’ve become an indoor society.”

Four children are enrolled in the two-day-a-week pro-gram that begins Monday, and Ms. Power-Johnston expects to meet her 10-child maximum capacity when the full-time program begins in January.

But first she’ll have to convince parents that their child won’t freeze, gobble poisonous berries or get lost in the woods.

“We recognize that a lot o education has to take place for this program to be success ul,” Ms. Power-Johnston says.

“And addressing parent’s fears,” she adds.

While the concept is new to Canada, outdoor daycares and preschools have been gaining popularity in Europe since the early 1900s, particularly in Britain, Germany and Nordic countries. Those programs, including forest kindergartens in Germany and the Secret Garden in Scotland, have been lauded for their ability to engage children with nature and active li estyles, Ms. Power-Johnston says.

She adds that kids may take fewer sick days because they aren’t cooped up in stale classrooms.

While Canada has lagged behind these countries, edu-cators say attitudes here are changing because o rising concerns about childhood obesity, indoor toxins and children’s lack o exposure to nature in urban centres.

Baby, it’s not that cold ouside THE GLOBE AND MAIL globeandmail.com

“There seems to be quite a movement starting,” says Don Giesbrecht, president o the Canadian Child Care Federation, an umbrella organization representing 20 provincial and territorial organizations across Canada. “It’s something that is starting but is not yet galloping across the country.”

One o the places where innovative work is happening is Winnipeg, an unlikely location considering the aver-age daily temperature in January is -18. (In Ottawa, the average daily temperature in January is -11).

But Ron Blatz, executive director o discovery Chil-dren’s Centre in Winnipeg, said he was inspired to do something a ter a delegation from Europe visited area daycares and pointed out that Canadian children spend much more time indoors than European children. “I was embarrassed,” he said.

So, instead o building another play gym, he and his sta added a fire pit, garden, sandbox, and field o tall grass to an abandoned school field. Instead o keeping kids indoors in the winter, he says, sta try to engage children in building snow forts.

The e orts are snowballing, he says. Last September, he hosted a meeting that attracted 120 landscape art-ists, architects and educators interested in engaging children with the outdoors. Students at the University

o Manitoba’s landscape architecture program are designing an outdoor daycare as their current class project.

Ms. Power-Johnston, a former social worker with the Children’s Aid Society, said she was inspired to open the preschool a ter doing research on alterna-tive education models and reading books such as Carl Honoré’s ‘Under Pressure: Rescuing Childhood from the Culture o Hyper-Parenting.’

At her program -- which costs $50 a day and includes organic snacks and lunch as well as bus transport from Ottawa -- children will garden, go for hikes in surrounding forests and explore nature. Story time will take place inside a solar-heated yurt, and i it’s really cold, they’ll have access to a one-room, heated learning centre with a kitchen.

Parents are educated about dressing their children in warm, layered clothing, she says. Good hydration is another key to making outdoor play sa e.

The idea has its critics, but Ms. Power-Johnston says she’s con ident that a little education will go a long way to soothing fears about Canada’s harsh climate.

“It’s really normal,” she says. “It just comes from fear and this being unknown.”

Baby, it’s not that cold ouside THE GLOBE AND MAIL globeandmail.com

ONLINE SOURCES (click on or copy into your browser):

www.theglobeandmail.com/life/parenting/young-children/children-health/bucket-list-for-kids-50-things-to-do-before-theyre-12/article2409207/page1/

www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/TV_Shows/The_National/1233408557/ID=1832833048

www.youtube.com/v/df0OVk0O28U%26hl=en_US%26fs=1%26rel=0