Through the Garden Gate

The Takoma Park Cooperative Nursery School's story begins with where we stand! For almost 80 years we have grown up in Takoma Park. In our early days, the founding families hopped around in Takoma DC, along Carroll Avenue in Old Town Takoma, and then to New Hampshire, holding classes in basements of any space that would hold us. In 2001, we purchased a bungalow and painted it purple. This move was a downsize in space, so we found ourselves still looking out and about for something that would give us the elbow room to return to full day programs for children ages 2 through 5 and their parents.

We have found it. And it allows us to stay on Flower Avenue.

Outdoor School

In all parts of the world, outdoor schools address the inequity of available indoor space or fit comfortably within cultures that value open air and being outdoors. This is not unique to Scandinavia, but those countries are often referred to as the source of outdoor schools.

What is outdoor school? Instead of sitting and playing indoors, at our school children play, explore urban nature, and enjoy story time in the open air. Integrating nature into early childhood education improves learning, reduces stress, and provides other mental health benefits.

We have renovated our play yard to include an outdoor classroom. This outdoor classroom has a covering so that children can meet, share, record journals, and play with materials that you might usually find only indoors.

At our school, place-based learning connects us with our community, including the physical environment, local landscapes, geography, and our neighbors.

Children gain an understanding of themselves and their place in the world. Children learn how to interact with any environment. We respect that many children will connect directly with place or nature over their connection to other people and this is a profound shift away from white supremacist views that humans (and only certain humans) hold the higher ground of connection and control. Humans are actually an integral part of a whole and each of us finds our way to where we need to be and always, first, through connection to place.

All three classes journey out of the school. You may see us out and about, especially on rainy days. The children develop a shared story, passed from one generation of children to next of place. The children before have named destinations and each new group of children names more. This shared story is a purposeful, step by step, journey towards establishing ourselves as part of a whole community, as neighbors.

A few words on warmth

I’m Cuban, and grew up with my Tías’ warnings about El Sereno, the ghoul who comes with the chill evening wind to steal babies’ souls (anyone’s souls, really) when they aren’t bundled up enough against the cold. Those cold, cold, Cuban evenings. That folklore and over 30 years spent in Florida’s various - all mostly warm - climates are my context, and I am not trying to mess around with feeling cold if not absolutely necessary. And really, not even then. I know kids who are happy to face the cold in shorts, but myself and my child are not those kids!

Those things said, here are routines I’ve noticed are helpful for myself and my kids, and for Purple School kids when they are here at the Outdoor School. Once we get temperatures down into the 40s, I dress myself and my outdoor preschooler in no less than 3 layers, everywhere, feet included.

The warmest days are when the base layer is a wool blend or synthetic. Hat and scarf are nonnegotiable. Mittens live in the backpack if not on the hands. On days with a wet ground, a waterproof layer goes over at least the bottom half of the kiddo. They’ll very likely sit or kneel in a wet spot at some point, and wet and cold is not what we’re going for.

As I’ve heard Lesley tell my children many times: If you start the day warm, you’ll stay warm. You can always shed a layer, but getting your base temperature back up when it’s gone below comfortable is a much harder task.

Three layers for cold days:

1. Base layer: wool blend or synthetic

2. Fleece

3. Waterproof layer, hat, scarf, and mittens

Warm food and warm tea go a long way to regulating the internal temperature. On many of our chilly days, we will serve tea to the children at the Takoma Park Cooperative Nursery School - this is a ritual with benefits beyond warmth - and a thermos full of a warm drink from home is also a very good idea.

Bodies in motion are warmer!

We’re building plenty of music and movement into the mornings in the classroom, and neighborhood walks will pick up frequency and become a little longer.

Written by Teresa Jimenez

Exploring nature with your Kids

Before the pandemic, when my daughter was a toddler, we frequently participated in Free Forest School meet-ups around the DMV region. The purpose of Free Forest School is to provide opportunities for unstructured nature play. At the time, there were several active groups in the region. These meet-ups all shut down during the pandemic and have been slow to come back.

I now have another toddler and missed these gatherings. A few months ago, I set out to find a good location in or near Takoma Park to meet up with other families for nature play. In this post I’ll take you through that process and share a few tips for cold-weather nature play.

Woodend Nature Sanctuary

The first site we explored was Woodend Nature Sanctuary, which has recently gone through a significant renovation to make it more accessible. We loved the small area of stumps and logs near the entrance to the trails behind the mansion. We built a “boat” out of big sticks and spent a long time playing on this and jumping between stumps. A few folks in our group went off to explore the trails and reported that the hike was simple but a little too manicured for their tastes. We decided to keep looking for a site that was a little more wild, though I will definitely return to Woodend for play.

Brookside Gardens Nature Center

We next tried the Brookside Nature Center. While the Center was closed when we went, we followed the trail behind and then past it. It is a lovely, wooded trail that is easy for little ones. There was a bench to stop for snack along the way and we found an amazing dry stream with a huge pipe creating a walkway over it. The kids spent at least 20 minutes peeking at each other through either end of the pipe and then another 20 minutes climbing a huge fallen tree nearby. It was a great experience but helped us clarify that we were looking more for an open space than for a hike.

Forest Park

After clarifying that we were looking for an open wooded area that was pretty wild, a friend suggested Forest Park in Takoma Park. We met at the small playground out front, with no sign of any woods. Our friend led us back, past the baseball diamond, to a small trail, then down around a fence. To my surprise, this opened into a huge forested area with few signs of residential life. There are big logs to climb across and over, valleys and hills to explore, lots of places for climbing, running, and finding mushrooms, and some amazing configurations of big rocks that are perfect for pretend play. As soon as we found Forest Park, we knew we had found our spot and have returned there weekly ever since.

Two other great places if you’re looking for an easy hike:

Access to the Northwest Branch Trail through Burnt Mills East and West Special Parks and the loop trail behind the Rock Creek Park Nature Center

- Written by Myra Margolin