Our playground is unique!  Its purpose is to be a space entirely dependent on the desires, interests and abilities of our students, the playmates.  Loose parts are available to provide opportunities for a deep quality of play.  It is a space where numerous loose parts lie in wait to be picked up by small hands.  Everywhere, children are active.  At any time you may find them experimenting with simple machines and building forts, robots or magical flying cars with pieces of “junk” from the playground.  By acting upon an environment with so many possibilities, students gain the good feelings that come from the creative and functional successes of their play.  The outcome is an accumulation of confidence that encourages further exploration, appropriate risk taking and incremental acceptance of challenges.  Through this type of play, which is free from an adult agenda and a natural notion to children, they will develop skills needed to be a creative confident adult.

Nature’s Way Montessori students are encouraged to engage in unstructured free play, outside, in all types of weather for at least 30 minutes a day.  We ascribe to the benefits of play in the natural environment for the child’s brain, body and spirit.  Recent bodies of research on child development suggest that regularly spending time outside playing improves psychological and physiological health.  This research is congruent with the Montessori philosophy as Dr. Maria Montessori stated… “Play is the work of the child.”

 

 
Guiding Principles 

Respect your playmates and play-workers

Respect your surroundings, living and non-living

Respect the desires, interests, enthusiasms and abilities of all

Features
  • Large wooden play structure
  • Climbing bars
  • Large sandbox
  • Open play house
  • Covered gazebo with benches
  • Large grassy field
  • Mud Café
  • Bike path for riding cars and trikes
  • Patios for basketball, group games and chalk activities
  • Decks for reading and socializing with friends
  • Varieties of trees that provide shade
  • Rain barrels for water play
  • Amphitheater
  • Picnic tables
  • Story rocks and loose parts
  • Dress up suitcase
  • Aluminum canoe
  • Dance party on Fridays
  • Sensory Woodland Path
The Adventure Playground provides an environment where students can:
  • Activate their big and small muscles through heavy work like lifting and carrying
  • Find solutions for their own disagreements and practice teamwork
  • Practice self-regulation
  • Take appropriate, calculated risks and test their strength
  • Make their own decisions and learn about cause and effect
  • Explore, discover and be curious about their surroundings
  • Have a voice and follow their own instincts, ideas, and interests in their own way, and for their own reasons
  • Be independent and self-reliant
  • Communicate feelings, thoughts, needs and wishes
  • Practice assertiveness and give consent
  • Show empathy, respect, understanding, acceptance and care for each other
  • Collaborate, compromise, and learn from each other
  • Manipulate, experiment, build, invent, and imagine with ‘loose parts’
  • Play with water and transform their surroundings
  • Feel excited and elated; bored and frustrated; confident and empowered
  • Run, climb, balance, spin, go upside down, swing, pull, push, jump, crawl, catch, kick, bounce, stack and ride
  • Build their structures and take them down
  • Build an obstacle course to practice balance, focus and calculated risk
  • Dress up and role-play
  • Experience nature on their own terms

(Adapted from quotes by Gray, Lester and Hart)