The Alley Pond Environmental Center (APEC) is an environmental educational center in Queens, NYC dedicated to preserving nature in an urban setting. At APEC there are nature trails, salt marshes, forests and meadows. APEC is open to the public and also offers weekly classes, a nursery school program, after school care, vacation programs, family and adult programs as well as teacher trainings.
APEC also hosts amazing homeschool classes for kids age 4 and up!Ethan took a class here in the fall.We drove from Brooklyn and depending on the NYC traffic, it was anywhere from a 35 minute to 2 hour commute.Most often 35 minutes though!When we arrived on the first day, we were greeted by this sign…
I almost cried.Never, have I ever, seen a sign like that anywhere in NYC!It was so exciting.And were we ever welcome! Each week Ethan spent an hour with his class of other 4 and 5 year olds.The teacher read books, sang songs and led the kids through hands-on experiments and games. Each week they learned about another animal that lives at Alley Pond and they got to meet a live animal right in the classroom!At the end of each class, the kids took a hike with their teacher around the nature preserve.It was a great class and I’d highly recommend it!Ethan’s teacher was warm, friendly and knowledgeable (about children and nature).He really liked her.
While Ethan was in class, Lillian and I were free to explore APEC or spend time in one of the classrooms that was not in use.She really loved this.She got to play with the toys, look at the books and at the end we were careful to put everything back right where we found it.There are also lots of live animals inside the class building at APEC that Lillian loved to visit.
Definitely consider APEC if you are a homeschooler in NYC!
I first learned of the idea of Poetry Tea Time from Instagram. It looked lovely and I knew I wanted to learn more about the idea! Julie Bogart creator of Brave Writer, the online writing and language arts program, first created Poetry Tea Time when she was homeschooling her own children. She loved poetry from an early age but knew there was a “culture of anxiety around poetry.” She wanted to introduce her children to poetry and thought about doing that over tea, a time when “there’s a universal urge to pause, to rest, to draw in to self and community around a soothing beverage.”
Doesn’t that just sound so lovely?
You can check the #poetryteatime on Instagram and see that thousands of families, all over the world, are now enjoying Poetry Tea Time, just like Julie and her family. We tried it and it’s as delightful as it sounds! We now have Poetry Tea Time once a week. We will usually bake a small treat to enjoy with our tea and then gather at the table to read some poems!
I purchased Julie’s book, The Poetry Tea Time Companion, from Amazon (affiliate link). It’s a great book with wonderful poems arranged by season. But although I am happy to own it, I don’t feel you need it to make Poetry Tea Time work for your family. You can check out her website – http://poetryteatime.com or look at Instagram for inspiration. It’s so much fun to set a pretty table and sit down together. I’ve picked up a few seasonal mugs at Christmas Tree Shops and my kids love this added flair of a pumpkin mug or a shark mug, depending on the season!
I definitely agree with Julie that poems and tea go well together! I’m glad to have another time of our day when we include poetry. It feels natural and special at the same time.
Do you have Poetry Tea Time in your house? If you need any inspiration of good poetry books for children – check out this post or you can find a .pdf list in the Booklist section of the blog that you can download with poetry books we enjoy.
In our family we listen to a lot of classical music.I’ve compiled a list of books about classical music that we enjoy reading and included some CDs that the kids enjoy listening to too.
We first started listening to this CD when my son was about 2 years old.It is a great introduction to instruments, the orchestra and classical music for kids.It’s still something that we all love listening to.I’m sure you can stream this now or download it.
Both kids love this one. It’s a lovely story that matches the music from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. On each page there is a button to push with a piece of music.
Today I wanted to share with you an article I read recently, “The Joyful Illiterate Kindergarteners of Finland” from The Atlantic. This is not a new article, just new to me. It was definitely one of the most thought-provoking things I’ve read on the subject of early-childhood education. I also found it quite pertinent, as my son is in what would be his Kindergarten year of school.
If you have time and are interested, take a look at the article. It’s a really interesting glance inside a typical Finnish Kindergarten and a brief explanation on their philosophy of early education, which puts play, the natural way children learn, above all else.
The differences between Finnish Kindergarten and today’s American Kindergartens are stark.Since Finland ranks as the number 1 literate country in the world, I was quite intrigued.Here are some of the biggest differences I learned from the article:
Finnish Kindergarten
American Kindergarten
The children are 6 years old.
Here in NYC, children can start the year they turn 5.Many kids are still 4 in September. “Redshirting,” or starting Kindergarten later, is not allowed here in public schools.Private Kindergartens have an earlier cut-off than December.
School is 4 hours a day.
School is 6 hours a day.
Children are engaged in pen and paper work only once a week.
Children are engaged in pen and paper work multiple times a day.
The curriculum is 100% play based.
In most/ many classrooms play has been all but eliminated.
Finnish teachers will teach a child to read only if they are willing and interested.
Literacy instruction is mandated for all students – reading, writing and phonics.
Clearly, these Finnish children all grow up to read! However, their educational system does not push reading instruction on it’s young students. I think today’s American school system could learn a few things from Finnish Kindergarten!
American Kindergartens used to look more like Finnish Kindergartens. I wonder what happened? The developmental abilities of 5 year olds did not change here in the US. But our early-education programs did. I wonder why?
This article is one reason why we are putting such an emphasis on play, especially outdoor play, in our homeschool.
Had you heard about Finnish Kindergarten before?Let me know in the comments!
One of our favorite places to visit in Prospect Park is the Zucker Natural Exploration Area. It is often referred to as “the natural playground.”
The Prospect Park Alliance created this space using trees from the park that were downed during Hurricane Sandy. These trees and other other elements of nature such as a large sand area, tree stumps of varying heights and a water pump feature form a natural playground for children.
walking on the tree stump path
large, natural sand pit
woods
playing in a downed tree
My kids can spend hours there. We usually only bring a bucket and shovel and the rest of the time they play only with the natural materials in the area. While there, my kids are immersed in sensory, imaginative and unstructured play, all outside. What a gift for city kids!
I think it is interesting to note that there are many, many traditional playgrounds in NYC. We have been to a lot of them! My kids do not have as much fun and do not have lengthy sustained play sessions like they do at the natural playground. My kids, like others, definitely prefer to interact with nature.
My kids love Zucker because they have so much fun there. I love Zucker for many other reasons! There are so many opportunities for my children’s health and development simply by being at a natural playground. I feel lucky that we have this amazing place to play, so close to home.
At a natural playground like Zucker, children have the opportunity for risky play; something that has been all but eliminated from traditional playgrounds which are covered in rubber padding and where jumping off the swings or climbing up the slides is prohibited.
Wait, isn’t risky play dangerous? Yes, but it is also vitally important to a child’s development and it is sadly being eliminated from modern day playtime. How can anyone begin to know their own limits if they haven’t been allowed to independently test them?
Angela Hanscom, pediatric occupational therapist, forest school owner and author of the book Balanced and Barefoot, explains that a child’s neurological system was designed to “seek out the sensory input it needs on its own in order to reach the next developmental level.” Whether it’s rules on the playground, the disappearance of recess or overly anxious helicopter parenting, you can see how modern times are getting in the way of natural human development. Risky play is an important part of building confidence and self-esteem. It allows a child to experience frustration and learn coping skills.
Below is a picture of my son, perched atop a rather large log, really wanting to jump, but not sure if he should. He is practicing self-reflection and regulation all in this peaceful pause. He may or may not have started to scream in frustration because he really wanted to jump but he was scared. He’s learning his own physical limits and how to accept them. He didn’t jump, for the record. Maybe one day in the future, he will.
There is also much more room for creativity in a natural playground than in a traditional playground. The logs can quickly become sharks or ships, or anything children can pretend. At a traditional playground, the structures are more fixed, making this type of imaginative and dramatic play more difficult.
My son used a stick to create bear tracks in the dirt.
There is also far more physical activity and exertion happening at a natural playground. At a natural playground kids can climb trees and logs, carry buckets full of sand and water, move heavy logs and rocks, roll down hills and run in green space. At a traditional playground, these opportunities are simply not present. A natural playground provides greater opportunities to expand gross motor skills.
Lillian lifting a heavy branch
At a natural playground, children are immersed in natural sensory experiences. They can take off their shoes to feel the grass, sand and mud between their toes, hear the leaves rustling, cover themselves in mud, “cook” with dirt, splash in water and smell flowers. While they are surrounded by sensory input, none of it is overwhelming as it is all naturally created. There are no overstimulating colors, bright lights, loud music or voices reverberating against the walls that you might find at an indoor playspace.
Another aspect unique to a natural playground are loose parts. Loose parts have been popularized as part of the Reggio Emilia philosophy of education. This term was coined by the architect, Simon Nicholson, who observed that when children have access to loose parts (simply materials that can be moved around), there are more opportunities for interaction, engagement and tinkering. When children have access to loose parts, their creativity can really take flight! They also create natural learning opportunities for counting, pattern making, geometry, problem solving and fine motor skills. Loose parts abound at Zucker in the form of rocks, sticks, leaves and flowers.
While at Zucker (or I imagine, another natural playground), children have the opportunity to engineer and build. My children have moved huge sticks around both independently and cooperatively with friends to build a wigwam and to create an imaginary bonfire. Again, these incredible opportunities are unique to natural playgrounds.
Working together to build with large sticks and branches
As an added bonus, in the summer, the Prospect Park Alliance brings in goats to eat the invasive plant species that grow near Zucker. The goats are kept in a fenced in area but are clearly visible to the kids. My kids love to watch the goats!
Do you still need more reasons to believe why natural playgrounds like Zucker are better than traditional ones? In How to Raise a Wild Child, author Scott D. Sampson cites studies which prove that bullying and aggressive behavior are greatly decreased at a natural playground vs. a traditional. He details that real estate prices in one neighborhood spiked by 20% one year after the city of Toronto’s first natural playground was installed there. The incidence of broken bones at a natural playground are a fraction of what they are at traditional playgrounds. I could go on and on!
Do you have a natural playground in your area? Have you been to Zucker? I’d love to hear from you in the comments!
While we not so patiently wait for spring to come to where we live, we have at least been enjoying reading books about warmer weather, rain, flowers, worms and baby animals!
I’ve included a list of spring books that we recommend as a .pdf file in the Booklist section of the blog.
Below are Amazon Affiliate links to our favorite reads about spring!
Do you have any other favorites? Particularly about worms? Those are my son’s favorite! I’d love to hear any recommendations you have in the comments. Thanks!
I remember when I joined my first local homeschool Yahoo group, a veteran mom wrote an email giving advice to new moms who were just getting started.She said, if there is something you want for your children but it doesn’t exist, start it yourself!She said that chances are, others will be looking for something just like you and will happily join in.She could not have been more right!
When I found the Wild + Free Instagram page and began listening to their podcasts and subscribing to their monthly bundles, I knew right away this movement was going to have a huge impact on how we homeschool.Their motto reads, “Our desire is to give our children a quality education but also to preserve the adventure, freedom and wonder of childhood.”I thought to myself, yes, please!Sign me up for that.
So I began to think of how great it would be to meet other Wild + Free mamas.Not so surprisingly, there was no group in NYC.
Soon thereafter a thread popped up on our neighborhood Yahoo board about a mom looking for alternative options to Universal Pre-Kindergarten (UPK) for her daughter.Now, in NYC, UPK is FREE full-day pre-k.Very, very few people pass on this opportunity.At this point, I had only met a handful of moms who were saying no to pre-k and who were questioning why three and four year olds should be in school six hours a day.So I took a deep breath and replied that we too, were passing on UPK and I had this idea of setting up a Wild + Free group.Guess what?So many other mothers wrote back that they were interested!
And so it began, in the spring of 2017, NYC’s first Wild + Free group.We meet once a week and the kids have free, unstructured play outside in nature.My kids have made some really great friends this way!And so have I!
This Wild + Free group is another opportunity for my kids to engage in mixed age play, something often missing from a traditional school experience. The older kids have each other to explore with and also have the opportunity to not only be role models for the younger kids but also to help them take off their shoes, fill up their water bottles and give them a boost up a tree. Everyone in the group is fully included and valued, no matter how they join in. We often stay and play together for about 4 hours.
It has become such an important part of our week.This group has helped me feel much less isolated as a homeschooling mom.Currently, there are 63 families on the email distribution list.No, 63 families do not join us each week.But still, it’s comforting to know these other families exist and that we are not alone in our quest for alternative education options.
Do you have a Wild + Free group near you?Are you familiar with the Wild + Free movement?Anyone going to the conference in September?I am!I’d love to hear from you in the comments.
In a previous post, I discussed how we have incorporated the Charlotte Mason concept of a “morning basket” into our homeschool.In this post, I thought I would explain how we use our morning basket.
My kids really love to eat breakfast!This meal can go on for a really long time in our house.Before reading about Charlotte Mason, I began reading to my kids at the breakfast table simply because we were sitting there for so long each day!We came to love this time spent together, when everyone was well rested and well fed.We now have a structure to our morning time and we keep all of the components we need in a basket right next to our table.Hence the name, Morning Basket.
Here are the components to our Morning Basket, in the order we work through them:
Calendar – Oh, calendar work.This work has taken so many forms over the last few years because I have changed it up so many times. We started with a traditional “school” calendar with velcro numbers. But honestly, it was too big for our apartment and a pain to keep up with. Why? Because, for my daughters first two years of life, it was her personal mission to rip off every number as many times as she could get at it. She loved to hear that very satisfying velcro sound .
Currently, it’s quite simple: a printed out calendar for each child where they write in the date (handwriting practice, counting practice) and mark off the days as we go.We also use our Montessori bead bars to “make” the date which again affords counting practice as well as number sense work. These bead bar cards are from the blog Every Star is Different.
Books – I keep some high quality, timeless picture books in the basket that we enjoy reading over and over.We usually read 2 – 3 books each morning.The kids choose from the basket or can choose a book from the bookshelf in our playroom where we keep a seasonally rotated selection of books.
Poem – We have a few poetry books for children.I’ve included a list of the books we use in the Booklist section of the blog.The kids often request to hear a certain poem or I will read one that is seasonally appropriate or pertinent to something we are learning about.
Here is a list of poetry books we own and love: (Amazon affiliate links)
A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson (My grandmother read this book to my mom, she read it to me and now I am reading it to my kids. It is so special to us.)
Reading Practice – My daughter is currently learning her letter sounds, so I keep a few letters in the basket for her to identify, trace or try writing. Sometimes I will keep a few miniature “language objects” for her to identify the first sound or try to spell phonetically. We do only one of these things each day and it is a super quick activity, taking 1-2 minutes.I will also introduce new phonograms at this time or introduce my son to a new high frequency word. Sometimes he will read a list of words from the same word family, or read out a sentence strip. Sometimes I bring over a few letters from the moveable alphabet and they will spell one word each. This is always very quick and I just plan something to compliment what they are working on at the moment.Again, very simple.
Math Practice – This, like reading, can take many forms.Sometimes we use a random number generator on my phone and will count to the number it suggests for us. Other times we will practice counting backwards from 20 or make a pattern with loose parts. I might give my son a simple addition problem to solve or the kids might play one of their favorite games, Roll and Record. I follow the kids and their interests and always keep it very simple.
Song – We always end with a song.I keep a seasonal playlist on my phone using Spotify and we enjoy learning new songs and singing together.
For where we are in our homeschooling journey and the ages of my kids, this is how Morning Basket works for us. We all look forward to this time of day and really enjoy spending this time together.
If you’d like to hear how another family practices this morning time, take a listen to Wild + Free podcast Episode 33 to hear Elsie Ludicello describe her morning time.It starts around the 8 minute mark.I might have cried listening to how beautiful it is.🙂
Oh, how I love Tinkergaten.For those of you who know me in real life, you know I actually can’t.stop.talking.about.it.I knew it would have to be the first local spotlight on the blog.Fittingly, it was also the first class my kids and I took when we moved to Brooklyn.
In NYC classes for babies and toddlers are a big business.Some families pack their kids days with music, gymnastics, dance, art, sports, etc.There are so many to choose from without having to walk far from our home at all and there were even more when we lived in Manhattan.And there is a real social pressure to have your kids enrolled in as many activities as possible.But, that is the subject for another post!
I’m not even sure how I stumbled upon Tinkergarten, but it was probably through Google.What is Tinkergarten, you ask?
“Tinkergarten is on a mission to elevate childhood.Each class becomes a tight-knit group of children and adults who learn together through well-designed, outdoor, play based activities.We help kids develop a host of important capabilities including empathy, collaboration, creativity, persistence and problem solving.Our expert-designed classes and activities help kids aged 18 months-8 years develop core life skills while enjoying healthy, fun and engaging experiences in the physical freedom of local green spaces.”
Why do we love it?
One of my favorite parts of Tinkergarten is that it is fully outside, in all kinds of weather.We’ve done Tinkergarten on a warm sunny day, a pouring rain day and a snowy day.It’s been lovely getting to know our “outdoor classroom” in all seasons.
spring
summer
fall
winter
We love the mixed age grouping. Our classes have been for kids aged 0-8. It’s a truly beautiful thing to watch the older kids and younger kids work and play together. Also, if you are a homeschooler in NYC, these classes are a great place for kids age 3.5 and up who often “age out” of daytime class offerings when everyone else goes to UPK.
Tinkergarten classes are designed so everyone can participate in a way that works for them. From babies, to older kids who might find their own exploring more interesting than the teacher’s planned lesson, everyone feels welcome, included and happy. My daughter took her first class as an 11 month old. I thought she’d just be tagging along with her older brother but she got right in there and joined in on everything! At a recent class, the kids found a huge tree branch that had fallen off a tree. Instead of eating snack on the class tarp as we usually do, our teacher encouraged the class to stay in the tree and eat their snack there!
11 month old Lillian at Tinkergarten
We love the Tinkergarten teachers! We’ve taken classes with 3 different teachers and they have all been truly wonderful. This is not something I have experienced with many other kid’s classes – that you love ALL of the teachers you’ve met.
These classes are truly developmentally appropriate. I once ran screaming from a kid’s music class that involved an electric guitar plugged into an amp, a disco ball AND bubbles. Cue the extreme overstimulation from sensory overload. Tinkergarten is just what kids need – peaceful time in nature, sensory and play based experiences led by a loving teacher. In my opinion, it doesn’t get any better.
Each week you get a follow-up email with photos and information detailing the skills (empathy, perseverance, etc.) the kids worked on in the previous session.
Often part of the class includes the teacher reading a book out loud. Every book we’ve read has been great! It’s a source of inspiration of books for us to read in our own home.
To be honest, Tinkergarten has changed, fundamentally, the way we play as a family and the way we structure our homeschool. It has almost, in a sense, given me permission to play outside, get messy and get out there in all kinds of weather with my kids. I never would have been led down the path to forest schooling without Tinkergarten.
messy play
So, thank you, Tinkergarten!
Do you have a Tinkergarten near you?Have you tried one?I’m curious if anyone is as Tinkergarten crazy as I am.Let me know in the comments!
I love podcasts!It is rare that I can listen to one straight through, so most days I listen in bits as I do the dishes.If I’m going out alone, I always bring my headphones and listen.Sometimes if my husband and I are in the car together, I’ll play one that I think he might like to hear too.
I’ve learned so much about homeschooling from listening to podcasts. Here are some of my favorites…
I’ve actually found that listening to podcasts while doing the dishes is a form of self care.10 minutes at a time but it still counts!On days when I forget to listen while I wash, I am noticeably crankier.
What are your favorites?Do you have any recommendations?
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