自然、自主、創造力、社會互動是本園的教育重點。希望孩子體驗自然，從大自然中學習，發展出自然而完整的人格、快樂的童年、社會互動，並了解自己的獨特性；在生活中，可以獨立自主、自理，完成自己想做的事，在學習過程中培養出責任感，萌發個人的自學力與創造力。
Yoyo Kindergarten: Focusing on outdoor play, guided play, character building, learning by doing and learning center approach.
Yoyo Kindergarten is a private kindergarten situated in Keelung, a rainy city in Taiwan. Despite the region’s undesirable weather, Yoyo hopes to encourage our children to venture into nature and to adapt to the different challenges they may encounter there and to take some manageable risks during outdoor activities and games. This approach not only fulfills children’s physical needs, but also builds inner growth. Yoyo has creatively designed a like-nature environment inside its campus yard, incorporating various natural gaming areas with a mixture of elements (low structured, loose part material, plants, agriculture, and ecology). In addition, regular outdoor extracurricular activities outside of school are organized once a week for children to get to know their living community and environment. These activities have been designed with particular missions to allow children to use their five senses to observe and to bond with the local community, to understand their surroundings and the ecosystem, and to foster a sense of place and affection for the local environment.
Nature has much to give; providing all sorts of opportunities for children to learn to be independent and to be self-aware.
As Yoyo children explore outdoors, Yoyo teachers find that “nature” helps children to participate in a rich variety of fun and new experiences. However, most importantly, children learn about self-protection and survival skills during outdoor play. These accomplishments are mostly self-learned by observing and exploring nature. Unlike the man-made world, nature has many unpredictable elements and circumstances (e.g. sudden rain). Yoyo believes that if children can be close to nature and enjoy the vast experience of natural play, they can slowly understand the different faces of nature and learn to appreciate nature and what is necessary to sustain nature and its creations.
A life-changing event further enhanced our school direction.
One day, sometime in fall 2016, the kids were out on their regular field trip in a national preservation forest location. An unexpected encounter shocked our children, the woods that they remembered were gone; all that remained were piles of dirt and chaos. The forest had suddenly become a large excavation site. The kids learned that the woods were destroyed by a local government agency to build more storage units for its own use. Locals soon formed an environmental awareness group and began a tree saving project entitled “Project Hope.” The children were keen to help and volunteered to be involved in this conservation project. This event motivated and prompted the children to rapidly develop an awareness of their co-existence with nature. The children participated in multiple events, holding conversations and protests with the local environmental group. From seeing at firsthand such a natural crisis issue, the children learned to accept and understood the man-made destruction and became aware of the importance of conserving nature and the wildlife that live there. As a result of this event, the children developed a greater curiosity toward nature and a desire to explore all things in nature.
The importance of companionship between Yoyo children and their teacher.
An outdoor playground is like a large classroom with multiple unexpected possibilities. Yoyo children explore, play games, and learn in nature. Kids are inspired and touched by natural elements and materials. For children to play outdoors, they need the correct guidance and support to keep them aware of safety issues and guidance when to solve unexpected problems. Therefore, Yoyo teachers are not only facilitators and companions to our children, but are also are the catalysts for the educational atmosphere and children’s learning. Teachers observe children as they play games and explore the environment. Teachers ask questions at the right moments to encourage thinking, but they do not tell children the answers directly, nor instruct them in methods that adults think are best. By using different tactics, our teachers encourage children to think, revise, and continue what they are doing with confidence, learning by doing, and learning from their mistakes. This approach helps kids to build their own strategies using problem-solving and logical thinking. The overall atmosphere of Yoyo is supportive of children’s active learning and repeated attempts. In addition, instructional scaffolding is encouraged among the children, because adults’ experiences are not absolute; children should do things their own way. Thus, they can grow and learn from the advice, encouragement, and criticism from their peers.
Adapting to changes and embracing changes.
Nature is always changing. In an unpredictable environment such as nature, children have the chance to assimilate to their surroundings and embrace change as they learn, to overcome the disruptions brought by the change, to improve their ability to take care of themselves, and to solve whatever problems they may encounter, or to simply enjoy these changes and the diversity of nature. Outdoors, children derive all kinds of fun-filled games and demonstrate exceptional performance that increases the range of their capabilities.
We are part of the natural cycle.
People are a part of nature. Through outdoor games, gardening, observation, and experiences with animals and different forms and species of life, children interact with the natural environment and learn to adore nature, to understand how nature is indispensable to people, and to recognize the life cycles of animals and plants. While immersed in different nature issues, children become increasingly aware of the desire to love nature and everything in it, and to protect “our” environment by participating in community activities; thereby, becoming true citizens of this planet.
Outdoors is not only fun, but also educational.
For children, the most important outcomes of outdoor games and interaction with nature involve not only the fun exploration and games, but understanding “change” and “how to face changes,” which is all character building. These experiences are extremely valuable to children. Long periods of natural exploration and outdoor activities help to develop children’s personae. Interactive outdoor experiences inspire children to love nature, to respect life, and to learn to co-exist with the environment. Also, during Yoyo’s outdoor events, kids learn by doing and from their mistakes; nature does not assure a smooth play process, children must think and act for themselves to work out and overcome the situations they find themselves in. Since nature is unpredictable, children are given multiple chances to self-correct and self-learn. Whether children exceed expectations or encounter not-as-expected outcomes in play, these experiences help them to embrace and accept changes and mistakes, to be resilient in the face of setbacks, and, most importantly, to learn how to set aside undesirable feelings and actively think of creative ways to solve problems. When children can do this, it fills them with confidence and the knowledge that they can be independent and have faith in their abilities.
