Outdoor Environments
Nurture AND Nature ~
Nurture AND Nature ~
Nurture AND Nature ~ Nurture AND Nature ~
MCH prides itself on having wonderful outdoor environments available for our students to explore and interact with. Our campus is nestled onto 5 acres of natural woodlands, wetlands, and forested hillsides.
Gardens
As part of our life sciences curricula, MCH has an active garden program based on the Montessori model of a child-directed, developmentally appropriate, individualized approach. Each MCH program (Infant/Toddler, Early Childhood, Elementary) provides children with direct access to gardening with the support and guidance of our Gardening Specialist. Several direct goals of gardening with children include nurturing independence, inspiring awe and wonder in the natural environment, and meeting several cognitive objectives such as an enriched vocabulary and taxonomy lending to a sense of where plants fit into the greater world. Latest additions to our garden spaces include over-flowing, large above ground gardens outside the elementary building, a pollinator garden, green spaces in our Infant/Toddler playground and new, natural wood fences on our main organic garden which doubles as a playground.
Animals & Farming
MCH also maintains a small selection of livestock, including goats and egg-laying chickens and rabbits. The livestock pens are incorporated into our grounds with ample opportunities for the children to interact with the animals. Feeding for our animals is supplemented with food waste scraps from our classrooms and kitchen. Newly created free-range bunny runs, a large goat/duck habitat as well as a remodeled chicken coop create hands-on learning opportunities for MCH students of all ages.
Wetland and Natural Environments
The Nature Trail is a living classroom, a community-created place of stewardship, discovery and connection to the natural world and an evolving space in which children experience a sense of belonging to our world and our community. Our Nature Trail is certified as a Natural Wildlife Habitat by the National Wildlife Foundation and as a Backyard Wildlife Habitat by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Thanks to the support of the MCH Parent Association, the 680 ft, fully-enclosed Nature Trail is a valuable part of our community.
In 2009, we received an ING Unsung Heroes Scholarship award. The award money was used to develop natural resource management curricula, looking at water and power usage on campus. The school purchased wetland and soil testing kits, solar education kits including solar ovens, and a power house kit, which students use on the protected wetlands on our campus.
Community
The Nature Trail is a touch point of community for MCH. The students provide leadership and have a vested interest in the Trail. The staff, parents, and extended families are intimately involved in the effort and the project will continue to span generations of students. The Mature Trail provides campus continuity and embodies the Montessori peace education mandate. MCH is part of a larger community and the Nature Trail enhances connections with that broader community.
The Nature Trail provides a low maintenance natural environment that has several divergent paths to explore and multi-level experiences. It offers a variety of motor activities for a broad range of community members. This trail is a place where the community DOES things! Dig, feed, move, build, reshape, plant, weed, harvest, explore.
Philosophy/Spirit
The Nature Trail is a journey, not a destination. It provides a sense of wonder of the natural world and a feeling of belonging to that world. The Trail is an evolving, dynamic ecosystem with a sense of history and purpose that invites the community to ponder what’s next. It facilitates community ritual, welcomes families and exemplifies our commitment to educating the whole child.
Space Interaction/Physicality
After five years of planning, digging, building, and planting, we have a 680 ft long trail that encompasses six different native planting zones. These zones include low maintenance flowering beds of annual & perennial grasses and wildflowers, Puget Basin forest understory, flowering forest understory, wild berries, a bio-swale with wetland grasses, and a sunny hillside stabilization section.
After replacing non-native plants with native ones, we use compost from our yard waste to help reduce the trail’s water dependence, and do not use pesticides or outside fertilizers.
Education
The Nature Trail is a living classroom and is an integral part of the educational experience. It provides both on path and off path opportunities to observe, discuss, and interact with a broad representation of nature. True to Montessori philosophy, it meets the student’s learning styles and sensory needs. It provides classrooms with specific stewardship responsibility. The nature trail facilitates independent, small group and large group learning scenarios.
The Nature Trail was a project that brought together our entire community – children, teachers, parents. Starting as an outdoor classroom dream by our teachers, we found an architect amongst our parent community to bring the dream to reality.
Playgrounds
“There must be provision for the child to have contact with nature; to understand and appreciate the order, the harmony and the beauty in nature.” - Dr. Maria Montessori
The playgrounds at MCH invite students to explore and discover their natural world. There are physical structures that encourage gross motor development like climbing, hanging, balancing, and swinging. There are tactile spaces that allow students the opportunity to explore different tactile medium (dirt, sand, rock, plants, branches). Spaces provide opportunities for creative, imaginative play and exploration and allow students to interact with plants, animals, weather elements, and physical structures.
Infant and Toddler Classrooms
Our single Infant classroom is a safe space in which to grow and freedom to move within that space. Under the eyes of our committed, nurturing teaching staff, each infant has a safe, gentle, interesting place to explore, rest, and grow.
From low shelving and toddler-sized furniture to materials especially designed to meet each child’s individual developmental needs, the three Toddler classrooms are carefully set up to be warm and inviting to these small explorers.
Early Childhood Classrooms
Children learn by doing. In our five Early Childhood classrooms, academic learning as well as the practical life and sensorial exercises are presented as activities that can be felt, handled, and manipulated. These hands-on experiences help a child to build their own understanding through discovery. In each classroom, there is space suited for group activity and spaces for a student to work alone. Students may choose to do work at tables or on the floor where rolled out mats help define a student's workspace. There are cozy, inviting spaces to curl up with books. Reachable shelves, child-size practical life tools, low sinks, chairs, and tables all work together to invite a student to explore and master the world around them.
Elementary Classrooms
There are two Elementary classrooms, one housing first through third grade and one housing fourth through sixth grade.
Shared by all, the Maple Grove works as a multipurpose classroom, and the space is used for cooking, science, art projects, and small group lessons.
Elementary classrooms are arranged and organized much like Early Childhood classrooms. There are spaces suited for group activities as well as spaces suited for individual work. Places to read and reflect are interspersed with shelves topped with plants and family photos. It's an inviting, calm, focused space with a sense of harmony and order.