1'0rest Kmdergarten at Waldorf School in Saratoga Springs - NYTimes.

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November 30, 2009

For Forest Kindergartners, Class Is Back to Nature, Rain or

Shine
By LIZ LEYDEN

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Fat, cold droplets splashed from the sky as the students struggled into their
uniforms: rain pants, boots, mittens and hats. Once buttoned and bundled, they scattered toward favorite
spaces: a crab apple tree made for climbing, a cluster of bushes forming a secret nook under a willow tree, a
sandbox growing muddier by the minute.
They planted garlic bulbs, discovered a worm. The rain continued to fall. It was 8:30 a.m. on a recent
Wednesday, and the Waldorf School's "forest kindergarten" was officially in session.
Schools around the country have been planting gardens and planning ever more elaborate field trips in hopes
of reconnecting children with nature. The forest kindergarten at the Waldorf School of Saratoga Springs is
one of a handful in the United States that are taking that concept to another level: its 23 pupils, ages 3 :1/2 to
6, spend three hours each day outside regardless of the weather. This in a place where winter is marked by
snowdrifts and temperatures that regularly dip below freezing.
The new forest kindergarten, which opened here in September, is an extreme version of the outdoor learning
taught at more than 100 Waldorf schools, all but a handful of them private, scattered throughout the United
States. They are based on the teachings of the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner and emphasize the arts
and the natural world, with no formal academic curriculum until first grade.
"I loved the idea of her being outside every day," said Kim Lytle, whose 3-year-old, aptly named Forest, is the
youngest in the class. "If you have the proper gear, 1 think it's a really healthy thing to experience the
elements and brave the world - and not just on a sunny day."
The children's "classroom" is 325 acres of state parkland known as the Hemlock Trail, and a long-empty
farmhouse, which the state has licensed Waldorf to use for the year. The school also has regular indoor
classes at its main building.
On this day in the fledgling program, whose tuition is about $7,000, the rain did not taper off, yet the
kindergartners remained outside until lunch. Circle time - songs and dancing - took place in the center of a
field, behind a farmhouse, followed by a snack of apples and pineapple chunks at picnic tables. The children
cut bittersweet vine to make wreaths, splashed in puddles, and, in the sandbox, did some imaginary cooking.
"We're making something that's cheesy," said one girl.

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Forest Kindergarten at Waldorf School in Saratoga Springs - NYTimes.com

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"It's cookies," said a boy.

Max Perez, nearly 5, carried a bucket to the swampy edges of the field and scooped up some water. He and
the others mixed the sand into gobs of glorious mud. Mter an hour, Max paused, peering out from his wet
hat, and asked, "Is it raining today?"
In some ways, the program is not unlike other kindergartens. Signs declaring a peanut-free zone are taped
throughout the farmhouse. There are bruised feelings and scuffles and potty jokes. But the biggest challenge
is one not found in traditional classrooms: ticks, lots of them.
Though virtually unknown in the United States, forest kindergartens are increasingly common in
Scandinavia and other European countries like Germany and Austria.
Sigrid D'Aleo and Carly Lynn, two Waldorf teachers, proposed adding one in Saratoga Springs because, over
the years, they had seen students at their best when outdoors.
"Their large motor skills developed, they worked out their social issues in a better way, they had more
imaginative play," Ms. D'Aleo said. "Children's senses are so overtaxed in these modem times, so here, it is
very healthy for them."
Richard Louv, author of "Last Child in the Woods," a book arguing that children have suffered from
diminished time outside, said he had heard similar things from educators around the country.

"It helps us use all our senses at the same time," he said. "It seems to be the optimum state of learning, when
everything is coming at us in lots of different ways."
Alane Chinian, regional director of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation,
said of the Waldorf school's use of the Hemlock Trail: "We are delighted to have them there. It expands our
mission and furthers the park's goals of providing nature education to children."
Here in Saratoga Springs, the children crossed into the forest at midmorning, greeted by the rich smell of
earth and leaves. A fallen branch had created an arch to climb through as if they were entering a hidden place
straight out of a storybook.
Trails had been worn through the thickets. An old stone wall ran through the center of the trees toward huge
tepees the children had built from sticks and vines.
Everywhere, there were things to discover. A branch balanced on a split tree trunk became a seesaw. A
teacher sawed thick stumps into logs the children used to bridge bogs. A pit became a monster house,
complete with boys standing in the rain shouting warnings: "You don't want to come over here! You'll get
smushed!"
Piper Whalen, 5, turned toward her own treasure: an enormous fallen tree. She climbed on and lifted her
arms. "I'm riding a roller coaster," she said. "Come on and ride with me."
The raindrops continued to fall until, finally, it poured, hard enough to splash though the canopy of trees.

The children were delighted.

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Forest Kindergarten at Waldorf School in Saratoga Springs NYTimes.com

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"It's wet!" exclaimed one.

"My hair is getting a drink of water!" another said.

Piper began to laugh. She stuck out her tongue and turned her face toward the sky.

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'10

..

EWALL STREET JOIJRNAL.

Ap.-il 14,2008

PAGE ONE

German Tots Learn to Answer Call of

Nature
By MIKE ESTERL
April 14, 2f)08: Page A I

IDSTEIN, Gennany -- Each weekday, come rain or shine, a group

of children, ages 3 to 6, walk into a forest outside Frankfurt to sing
songs, build fires and roll in the mud. To relax, they kick back in a
giant "sofa" made of tree stumps and twigs.

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The birthplace of kindergarten is returning to its roots. While schools and parents elsewhere push
young children to read, write and surf the Internet earlier in order to prepare for an increasingly
cutthroat global economy, some little Gennans are taking a less traveled path -- deep into the
woods.
.
Gennany has about 700 Waldkindergiirten, or "forest kindergartens," in which children spend
their days outdoors year-round. Blackboards surrender to the Black Forest. Erasers give way to
pine cones. Hall passes aren't required, but bug repellent is a good idea.

sa: A PHOIe SUDUHOW/l)

Mike Esterl

Two students in Idstein's Waldkindergarten.

Trees are a temptation -- and sometimes worse.

Recently, "I had to rescue a girl" who had climbed too
high, says Margit Kluge, a teacher at Idstein's forest
kindergarten. Last year, a big tree "fell right before our
noses."
.
The schools are a throwback to Friedrich Frobel, the
Gennan educator who opened the world's first
kindergarten, or "children's garden," more than 150
years ago. Mr. Frobel counseled that young children
should play in nature, cordoned off from too many
numbers and letters.

They are also a modem-day snapshot of environmentally conscious and consumption-wary

Gennany, where the Green Party polls more than 10% and stores are closed on Sundays.

Only a fraction of Gennan children attend Waldkindergarten, but their numbers have been rising
since local parent groups began setting up these programs in the mid-1990s, following the lead of
a Danish community. Similar schools exist in smaller numbers in Scandinavia, Switzerland and
Austria. The concept is sparking interest far afield -- even in the U.S., whose first
Waldkindergarten opened in Portland, Ore., last fall.

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4122/2008

"The computer arrives early enough," adds Norbert Huppertz, a specialist in child development at
the Freiburg University of Education and a Waldkinderg~irtcll booster in Germany.
Academic studies of such schools arc in their infancy. Some L:uropean researchers believe
Waldkindergarten kids exercise their imaginations more than. their briek-and-mortar peers do and
are better at concentrating and communicating. Despite dangers, from insects pat1icularly, the
children appear to get sick less often in these fresh-air settings. Studies also suggest their writing
skills are less developed, though, and that they are less adept than other children at distinguishing
colors, forms and sizes.
In the rolling countryside ofIdsteil1 011 a recent rainy morning, parents dropped off their children
at a muddy parking lot a bit after 8 as the temperature hovered around 40 degrees Fahrenheit.
Inspecting a Worm

Some of the children, wrapped in thick winter clothing, stooped over to inspect a worm. Then the
five girls and four boys trudged into the neighboring woods with their two teachers before pausing
to hold hands in a circle. "Good morning, sun, even though we can't see you today," said the 51
year-old Ms. Kluge, as the children joined in song and then acted out a play involving rabbits.
They hiked a few hundred feet into the forest before settling down to jump in puddles, examine a
hibernating lizard and paint Easter eggs. A girl named Maxi went off to whittle a branch with a
hunting knife. Another made "chocolate-vanilla-strawberry-herbal pudding" by stirring mud with
a twig.
At snack time, the children sat on logs and munched on carrots and nuts
while Ms. Kluge told them about the life cycle of toads. A boy named Ben
wanted to know whether a North American visitor accompanying them
was "a cowboy or an Indian." A bit before I p.m., after jumping in more
puddles, playing around a makeshift tepee and singing another song
involving the Easter bunny, the children emerged from the woods grinning
and caked in mud to be picked up by their waiting parents.
"It's peaceful here, not like inside a room," said Ms. Kluge, who has
headed the Waldkindergarten since it opened five years ago.
The children rarely venture into a trailer in the forest that's used as a
I'fIhtFflit Kluge
shelter in extreme weather. Ms. Kluge says no child has ever asked for a
toy. The children improvise instead with what the woods have to offer. And there haven't been
any bad accidents beyond the occasional scrapes and bruises.
Not everyone has a feel-good experience. Frankfurt resident Donna Parssinen sent her son to a
Waldkindergarten last year but says he got Lyme disease from ticks. It resulted in meningitis that
temporarily paralyzed half his face. "I still like the idea" ofWaldkindergarten, says Ms. Parssinen,
"but once is enough." Her son now attends a four-walled kindergarten.
Still, many German indoor kindergartens take children to nearby forests once a week to tramp
around. A spokesman for Germany's Ministry for Family Affairs said it welcomes the arrival of
Waldkindergiirten, which typically receive local government subsidies similar to those of state-run
kindergartens.

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4122/2008

Iwao Uehara, a professor at Tokyo Univcrsity of Agriculture, says he has been trying to set up
a school in Japan, but the project is struggling. Until there's cvidcnce that Waldkindergiirten
graduates end up attending "famous universities," it's going to be a tough sell, he says.
~uch

In Portland, though, Marsha Johnson launched Mother Earth kindergartcn last fall to combat what
she calls "early academic fatigue syndromc .... We have 5-year-olds who arc tired of going to
school." The 14 children spend four hours a day at the privately run school playing in a state park
forest.
How to Handle a Saw

Among the nature-based activities, children leam how to handle a real saw. "A plastic saw is no
good," says Ms. Johnson. "You might as well give them a plastic life." The worst that has
happened thus far to the children is the occasional bee sting, she says.
Mimi Howard, a director at the Education Commission of the States, which advises states on
policy from Denver, says some U.S. teachers feel pressure "to push academics earlier and earlier."
The federal No Child Left Behind law introduced standardized testing for reading and writing by
third grade, but some studies recommend more "open-ended learning experiences" for young
children. "We're in the debate phase," she says.
In Fife, Scotland, Cathy Bache recently took matters into her own hands and founded a private
nursery school. About 20 children explore the local forests, "saw logs, make fires when cold and
look at fungi," she explains. Ms. Bache admits the children fall out of trees "quite often" -- but
that she doesn't let them climb higher than 6 feet, the cutoff point for her insurance policy.

Write to Mike Esterl at mike.esterl@dowjones.com2

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