Learning Moore Through Nature & Play is a nature-based day program for children ages 3 -12. We support children and their families throughout all four seasons, embracing nature and their own unique strengths using research-based, developmentally appropriate practices featuring both structured activities and unstructured play. We honor and encourage each child's social, emotional, physical, and cognitive growth.

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What are Structured Activities?

Structured Activities are a familiar part of most school programs: teachers provide directions for children to follow, use specific spaces and materials, and have clear, yet flexible, expectations for how children will participate. They provide routine, comfort, and safety; reinforce school readiness; and expose children to new concepts, activities, and experiences.

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Structured Activities at Learning Moore Through Nature & Play look like:

• circle time

• snack

• lunch

• read aloud

• cooking

• yoga

• board games

• art project/craft

• feeding the animals​

• rest time

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What's Unstructured Play?

Unstructured Play is what has been called "the true work of childhood."

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It is the opportunity for children to kick off their shoes, jump off the stumps, open a bakery in the mud kitchen, splash through puddles, create a cat family with other children, carefully study ants, belt out their favorite song, draw maps to buried treasure in the sandbox, belly laugh at a silly joke, make angels in freshly fallen snow, and curl up with a book under a shady tree on a summer afternoon.

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Every self-selected activity during unstructured play reinforces autonomy - the ability to manage their play without the need for parental or adult control. A child with autonomy is curious, inventive, thoughtful, focused, imaginative, inquisitive, and amazing.

 

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What's Risky Play?

Unstructured Play includes Risky Play - where children experiment and push themselves to figure out what will happen, without knowing the exact outcome. If they don’t go far enough with their play, it’s boring. If they go too far, it's scary. Risky play is much like a science experiment, where children test their environment and determine their comfort level.

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Risky play is not dangerous or reckless play.

Risky play is intentional and supervised by our teachers, perhaps differently than you're familiar with:

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• First, we curate the physical space to include inviting things to climb, roll, throw, kick, push, move through, etc. We manage children's movement through what we include (and exclude) in the environment.
   

• Second, we serve as attentive guides. If a child is beginning to climb the jungle gym for the first time, rather than tell them to get down, we may have a conversation with them and ask what their plan is. How will they know they've climbed high enough? How could they get down safely? Do they need anything from us? 
  
  Or we may watch from a safe distance as the child navigates their climb. The teacher is there to support, not to take over.

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As E.B. White wrote in Charlotte's Web: “Children almost always hang onto things tighter than their parents think they will.”

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Through our research-based program, children at Learning Moore Through Nature & Play are constantly being exposed to new activities and environments and given the ability to thrive. We build on the strengths and interests of each child to help them and their family imagine a bright academic and personal future.