NC Nature + Nurture Outdoor Preschool

Our mission is to energetically and compassionately lead future generations toward discovering the connection between mind, body, and nature through outdoor, purposeful play.

NC Nature + Nurture is born from passion, excitement, and a mission to “rewild” our kids. We guide our young students using an emergent + place-based curriculum and aspire to nurture the whole child’s development, including social, emotional, cognitive, and physical.

Our Nature Preschool is a progressive program that aims to build skills + knowledge throughout our school year. We spend all day, every day, outdoors. Each day, week, and month throughout our school year is unique yet has a predictable rhythm that allows our young learners to thrive as they adventure into their natural world and learn through hands-on play.

View Daily Schedule Here

The confidence and skills our students gain from daily exposure to the natural world are cumulative and increase gradually from their first days in September to the end of our nature preschool program in May.

We use the interests and capabilities of each specific class/group of students (emergent philosophy) to create days + activities that spark their joy and curiosity using the environment (place-based) around us. We build toward hikes into the woods, exploring life cycles and habitats, identifying poison ivy, watching and listening for a variety of birds, investigating bugs, and learning to connect with and (safely) enjoy the beauty and wildness of nature.

We also swing, run, play hide & seek and “floor is lava”, turn into superheroes, climb, and blow bubbles, use counting rocks, balance on logs, go on scavenger hunts, make mud pies and potions in our mud kitchen, and become immersed in the changing seasons.

Each day provides a natural opportunity to build the skills necessary for the next step in your child’s education. We work daily to follow simple and complex directives, practice observation and active listening, solve problems, engage in critical thinking, examine cause and effect, and practice empathy.

Parents receive monthly updates on the things we are learning and discovering. This provides an extra special peek into their time with us and aims to help you track their growth in our Nature + Nurture Preschool.

We aim to spend each day completely outside because we believe that nature is essential to healthy wholistic development. However, we take your child’s safety seriously and monitor the weather each day. On days with questionable weather conditions (thunder, lightning, extreme temperatures, etc), we will move our play indoors.