Ep 38 | Let’s form a Nature Play Community!

And so, you know, I've also seen things that like... quite frankly blow my mind right you know and I can think like oh I've seen it all I've been doing this for you know whatever how many years you know what's going to surprise me I'm always like thinking about that you know early on lots of things surprise me and then you know I started to get the feel for all the great stuff that y'all are doing out there so there's so many great examples but you know I still have a million stories of you know my mind getting blown and here's one of them Years and years ago I got the awesome opportunity to work on a design in Minnesota with the Dodge Nature Preschool.

Dodge Nature Preschool.

Look it up.

It's an awesome place.

The center itself is amazing.

Designed by a visionary early childhood educator, director, I think professor.

The building's amazing.

The yard's amazing.

But what is extra amazing is that it is on the grounds of a Nature Center, Dodge Nature Center Preschool.

So I got to visit, and one day I just was trucking around with the kids, a class of preschoolers.

I kind of saw what they did, of course, in the yard, but then also out and about in the Nature Center.

They had farm animals, so we had a wagon filled with rotted pumpkins.

So we're going to feed them to the pigs.

So they throw them over to the pigs and the pigs happily eat them up and they know all the pigs by name.

And we keep wandering along and there's a bog with a boardwalk and no hand railings or anything.

Just, you know, the kids, they've talked it all over.

They know what the deal is.

Nobody wants to fall into the bog.

You know, but there they are.

They're looking at frogs and looking at the plants and looking at the water bugs and, you know, the whole deal.

You know, so I'm just like in heaven.

And then we come to the place they call Challenge Hill.

If you're listening from Dodge Nature Center Preschool, you're still challenging.

Is there still challenge on the challenge hill? Anyway, I'm always somebody that is all for kids taking risks or just supporting children or knowing they're capable and they can do amazing things and maybe more than we give them credit for.

They can do it.