The Forest Kindergarten

This is my message from the forest: A glance into the interaction between nature and children

I am very happy that I can share my thoughts and experiences from the forest kindergarten with you all.

In a world as it is today, I am allowed to experience and learn, what a blessing it is, when children are not separated from Mama Earth in the first place. When - as with us in the forest kindergarten - they are allowed to learn to live slowly under the protection of trees and plants.

My feeling is that many children are taken to kindergarten too early, separated from their parents, from their mothers... Of course, for some families there is no other way, I don't want to judge that, but my thought is: How are all these young beings who arrive here supposed to be able to establish a connection to Mama Earth, to be connected to her, when they come to house kindergarten so early, often only after a few months in the world, and experience a separation from their own mother so early?
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Separated, new impressions, often far too many activities around them... Yes, the adults do it lovingly and with deep care – and yet there is a large part of me that thinks... That must not be, it is not natural that a small child has to come to strangers so early. It is a great wish of mine that perhaps a change in the world will happen at some point. That children do not have to spend the first months of their life in a strange, unfamiliar environment and have to experience the first separations. I wish for a world, a community, in which parents are no longer "forced" to give up their child so early, because they have to go to work to keep the family unit functioning.

So it is simply a deep blessing for me to experience, how that does not happen here at the forest kindergarten, the children are not separated from nature and its naturalness as it might happen at some of the house kindergartens and schools. Children who come to us from other institutions find this interrupted connection again very quickly.

It's such a gift to watch children be a part of nature. Forest soil will be the best dough for cakes, pinecones of our trees will be the birthday candles on them. Branches, moss, fabric and strings become the castle of a princess or a pirate ship. Bark is used for building sailing ships.
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The imagination, the learning, the feeling and the experience of the children is not in a separation with the environment. You live in it and experience it in your development: Asking the trees, if they can have a branch to play with or a few individual leaves to cook soup. The mud in rainy weather is the most beautiful slide. Is there a nicer way for children to arrive here in our society? Deep roots are allowed to grow so that the children go into the future with the awareness of themselves.

It is a great wish of mine that perhaps a change in the world will happen at some point. That children do not have to spend the first months of their life in a strange, unfamiliar environment and have to experience the first separations.

​This connection, the exchange between all living beings, is not only noticeable in our forest, but can also be heard and seen. We have the most beautiful bird concerts and the tallest blueberry bushes. These grow everywhere in our forest, but in the place of our kindergarten area, the perennials are sometimes twice as high. Some of them go up to my waist! We are all convinced that this is children's laughter. This vibrant energy...
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Some birds also dare to come very close to us. When we sit in a circle with the children, a little robin often sits right next to us and waits until it can pick up form the ground, what fell down from the children's snacks. A little bird, a wren, has built a nest right next to our shelter and is breeding. And although we sometimes sit with over 20 children and four adults among them, it dares to fly over to feed. A special moment for everyone. Then it becomes very quiet in the circle – "Look! The bird mom is back! Shh, now we have to be quieter again so that we don't scare them away..." comes from one or the other child's mouth...
Yes, we are in nature no matter the weather, even in winter and in heavy rain. A campfire warms us and we can find warmth in a tipi tent or in a small wooden kota for a snack. This way, the children learn from an early age to feel themselves well and to take care of their own needs and maybe ask for help if needed.

One of the most beautiful experiences for me is, when we spend the night in the forest with the preschool children. This way we say goodbye to them. We sleep together on mats and in sleeping bags on the forest floor and watch shooting stars until the last children fall asleep protected by the tree creatures. And I am sure that these wishes, which are thought when observing these shooting stars, will come true at some point in the children's lives.

The head of the private kindergarten is Renate Nauert. A wonderful woman.

The forest kindergarten has the German name “Schnecke” (“Snail”).

– Langsam – Leben –Lernen - (learn to live slowly)

We have two groups with children from 3 to 7 years old. These children are four to five hours in the forest with us and then there is the “Waldbande” (the “forest gang”) – free time for school children in the forest, one half day every week and one whole day every month. There are more than 40 children in the two kindergarten groups.