09/16/2026
Learning often begins with an invitation.
After spending time closely observing an abandoned wasp’s nest, the children were offered a collection of natural and loose materials and a question: How can we build a home for the bees? What materials can we use?
There was no model to copy.
No set of instructions to follow.
Only the materials, curiosity, one another, and the freedom to wonder.
We choose to learn in and through nature because there is growing research connecting time in nature with children’s well-being, attention, creativity, and connection.
There is another reason we return to nature again and again: nature creates space for children to experience themselves as capable.
When we offer an invitation rather than a prescribed outcome, children come to trust their own ideas.
They decide what they notice.
They decide what materials might work.
They decide where their thinking will take them.
They can try something, rethink it, change direction, begin again.
In those moments, something much bigger than a home for bees is being constructed.
Agency. Confidence. Collaboration. Creativity.
A growing trust in themselves and their own thinking.
This is what we mean when we talk about learning in and through nature. We aren’t simply taking children outside to learn. We are creating conditions where children can wonder, explore, make meaning, and discover that their ideas are worth following. 🐝🌿
