The Mayapple School

The Mayapple School's Plant Sale will be here soon! Join us at Rising Silo Brewery on Sunday, April 26th from 9 am to 2 pm to adopt your latest plant babies, and from 12 to 2 pm for our paint-a-pot fundraiser for all ages (buy a pot and paint it with us on site, all materials provided with purchase of pot.) Plant varieities we will sell in comments. Proceeds benefit our non-profit organization - help connect kids with nature and build care for each other and our planet! Plant varieties in comments.

Summer Camp Openings:
one space left in Appalachian Eco-Arts, Story & Stage, Outdoor Engineers, and Summer Sampler.
two spaces left in Mess Makers and Mini Games & Adventures.
Scholarships available
Join the summer fun!

Mayapple School Explore engaging summer camp programs at Mayapple School, featuring arts, science, engineering, and outdoor adventures for children aged 2.5 and up.

The Mayapple School is hiring for this summer! Find the full job position description and how to apply here: https://www.indeed.com/job/summer-camp-environmental-educator-efbeea69b87957dd

Splashing in creeks, searching for salamanders, making the very best “magic potions” for woodland fairies, telling the tallest of tales around a campfire– if you think that this is what summer is meant to be, then come join us! The Mayapple School offers creative, place-based education for children, with a vibrant environment for project based learning, process art experiences, and nature explorations. We are looking for an enthusiastic individual to bring summer fun and learning to day camps at our site at 2895 Old Fort Rd, Blacksburg, VA.

Summer Camp Environmental Educator - Blacksburg, VA 24060 - Indeed.com The Mayapple School

Today's the day! Summer Camp registration is now open! Options for ages 3 - 12. From acting to learning beginning tracking skills; testing stream water quality to trying your hand at the potter wheel; making fairy homes to harvesting in the garden-- experience the magic of summer the way childhood is meant to be!
https://www.mayapple.org/camp

Today is the day! Dream of summer... PLAN for summer! Camp Registration! Yay! https://www.mayapple.org/camp

The Mayapple School is hosting a Kids' Night Out on Friday, February 13th for children ages 2 - 8 years old from 5.30 to 8.00 pm. This fundraiser supports our summer camp scholarship programs! $40 for one child; $65 for two siblings.

Activities include:
Pizza dinner provided
Candle-light walk outdoors
Cozy story time
Arts & Crafts

We hope you will join us!

https://themayappleschool.square.site/shop/kids-night-out/DKZXEGVUSHMR4MRLORB3GHAR?page=1&limit=30&sort_by=category_order&sort_order=asc

Wrap Around Summer Care Registration is Here! New in 2026, our summer wrap-around program is available for children ages 3 -6, and is designed to help simplify and provide continuity of care over the summer. When you sign your child up for the summer wrap-around program, they will join in the summer camp session running that week for their age group. Drop off will begin at 8:45 am. After our summer camp program ends for the day, summer wrap-around attendees will have a rest or naptime indoors and other activities such as independent choice and story time when time allows until pick up at 3:00 pm. Hours and dates are 8:45 am - 3:00 pm from June 15 - August 7, for a total of 8 weeks of care. Six week options also available.

You can check out our full Summer Camp schedule. Week-by Week registration opens February 6! https://www.mayapple.org/camp

Snow, snow, snow! We love snow! In addition to our snow-inspired winter poems, we celebrated the snow earlier this winter by...

Using a bin to make snow blocks that we formed into a half wall shape. This was one of the last items to melt, which gave us lots of opportunities to witness change with different weathers, such as melting and refreezing.

Painting the icy snow and our wall, which is definitely a different experience than painting on paper. Adding colors to the stark white was very compelling for the students, and they were interested to see how the colors spread as the snow melted.

Making a snowman! Children used teamwork to share ideas and turn them into reality.

Enjoying our first campfire of the school year. Students told stories around the fire and enjoyed the warmth on our coldest school day yet.

Following footprints and making nature discoveries. At school and at Price Park, we saw signs of so many different animals. Cats, rabbits, birds, dogs, humans, deer, raccoons, and squirrels all share this wintery wonderland with us. We even saw signs of new mole tunnels under the snow! Tracks help us hone our powers of observation, as does adding to our phenology wheel. “Nature Discoveries” this month that were added to our wheel were the red cardinal, turkey vulture, hawk, and witch’s butter jelly fungus.

Sledding! Students enjoyed riding down the hill or with each other, feeling the physical thrill of going fast while also learning skills like taking turns, controlling direction, and exiting the sled.

Reading snowy books. Some selections were Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost, Winter Poems, Thanks to the Animals, and Frosty the Snowman.

Observing snowflakes under a magnifying glass.

Do you know the Little Library at the entrance to Price Park? We do! This month, Mayapple School students practiced the act of Giving by adding a very special book to the little library - a book of poems they wrote themselves. We would love for you to come check out the book, and even add your own poem in the blank pages.

When learning about poetry, young children need lots of examples to begin to understand how poetry is different than a list and a story. We share poetry with books, spoken aloud, and in song and with sign language, both rhyming and non-rhyming. One of the things that we tell students to help them write their own is that poetry is like the words to a song. Some of our students take that to heart, some singing aloud these poems to their own little tunes as we write them down. As a teacher, it’s truly joyful to be a part of these poems entering the world in whatever form they are caught.

Here are just four of the poems that were inspired by outdoor explorations in a winter wonderland of snow and ice! Poems are titled with the first line of the poem unless another title was given by the student.

The Frozen Creek
Victor

The frozen creek
Made of ice
When I stepped on it
It turned to water

I don’t know where the moon is
I know the moon changes sizes in the night

The Snowflakes Fall
Axel H.

The leaves change color
The snowflakes fall to the ground
There’s ice on the ground
It starts to get colder and colder
And even colder
The animals go in to a different country
The hibernation ones don’t
There’s a blue jay knocking on my window
And then it’s spring again!

One snowman
Finley

One snowman
With one nose
And two eyes
And with lots of buttons
1, 2, 3… then he’s melting!
That’s one sloshy mess!

The Snow Falls Down
Zoe

The snow falls down
The wind blows all the snow everywhere
All the children said,
“We love snow!”
They played in the snow
And they loved the snow

Animals! This fall our students wanted to learn all about animals, so we dived right in. We learned about diurnal, nocturnal, and crepuscular activity hours; played food chain games like bat and moth; read about wildlife corridors and made our own wildlife overpasses in a block center city; stayed safe from predators while building our own beaver lodge; played "pin the tail on the skink" while learning about animal adaptations; and added Price Park nature discoveries to our phenology wheel. We made our own animal yoga poses and poems, sang songs and read books about animals, and played pretend (so that's what those wolf howls are about...)

What "Quiet Work time" is at The Mayapple School, and why it matters:

After lunch, little bodies are fueled, but that afternoon slump isn't far away. Transitions can be hard for little ones (or really, anyone!), so we'll use some of that energy up before we expect rest time to happen.

In the mornings, the whole classroom is open, but now, we'll narrow it down while still allowing children to choose to help keep attention spans focused. Work mats visually maintain focus and help us manage clean up for floor work.

So what are we doing? Mathematics, literacy, science, fine and gross motor work, art-- young children want to explore the whole world. Perhaps we're learning to work together and strengthen our bodies with partner yoga, developing hand control shelling beans, learning the parts of the human body, playing memory games, or matching bird sounds with their pictures. Focused opportunities to practice specific skills mean greater abilities when we enter into complex play or use applied knowledge to make predictions and solve problems.