Wildsong Early Learning Community

Wildsong's FREE community wide nature play day is this Wednesday, June 10th from 10 am until 12 pm at the Mishawaka Res!

It's gonna be a warm one this week...perfect weather for putting your feet in a cool and shady creek! We'll also have additional water play activities, shady locations, and an air conditioned indoor space with additional nature play activities. There is a small chance of showers, but since we're a nature school we'll proceed rain or shine. Come out and play!

A small but mighty group of Wildsong volunteers made a big difference at Mishawaka Res yesterday!

During our Wildsong Family Volunteer Day, parents and children tackled building a new fire pit, weeding and mulching the playground, and transplanting hostas. There was also some touch up painting, pruning, and even more weeding.

Thanks to everyone who came out to lend a hand!

Start your summer off right with some outdoor adventuring! For the third year Wildsong will offer a FREE community wide nature play day at Mishawaka Res. This event will be held on Wednesday, June 10th from 10 am-12 pm.

All ages of children are welcome to join us with a caregiver to wade in the creek, explore the trails on a scavenger hunt, and engage in other nature play activities. The play day is self-led for participants in a come and go style. Participants will also be able to meet Wildsong staff and see our programming spaces. Grab a friend and join us!

Wildsong year 2 has come to a close! It was so delightful to celebrate all the children at our End of the Year Family Gathering last Friday night and to have some special last days of class this week.

This year Wildsong added two new classes, one new staff member, and doubled our enrollment! None of this would be possible without the wonderful families who trusted us with their children or our hard-working and kind educators.

With full and grateful hearts we now head into summer break!

As we near the end of the school year and reflect back it's fun to remember all the special activities and hours spent in outdoor nature-based play. What's harder to capture in a picture is all the social-emotional learning that also happens every day in our programs.

In our classes children are learning and practicing skills such as how to make (and keep) friends, emotional regulation after upset, separating from caregivers, kindness, how to ask for help, empathy, how to repair a harm, and how to set personal boundaries. Some of this is done through conversations and books at morning meeting while a lot of it unfolds throughout the day through coaching and modeling by our educators. These are life-long skills and early childhood is a great time for learning and practice!

It's time to pull garlic mustard! Over the past few weeks, all of our Wildsong classes have had the chance to help remove this invasive plant from the woods at Mishawaka Res.

A tall stem and white flowers in the spring make this plant easy to spot, even for our youngest learners. The 1st-3rd grade homeschool class also received a lesson about invasive plants from Res Director Lynnea. These small but energetic crews made an impact!

Don't miss your chance to get a seat on the Wildsong "choo-choo express"! Wildsong has had our strongest enrollment season yet, but with recent shifts in our roster there are still limited one and two day seats available for our classes starting in August.

Learn more at wildsongelc.com and enroll today. Please share to help us spread the word!

Our 3-6 year old classes recently enjoyed welcoming a special guest presenter, Ms. Melissa, who is the Education Chair of the South Bend - Elkhart Bird Alliance.

Ms. Melissa read our classes a book about bird nests, showed pictures and real examples of different kinds of nests, and provided materials for children to see if they could make their own nest in a bowl. One class even had a few birds show up during the presentation! Thank you Ms. Melissa for sharing your knowledge and time with our young learners!

This year Wildsong added a community sourced music wall to our early childhood outdoor play area! Families donated items that would make interesting sounds and it was a team effort to get everything installed. Now our Wildsong children can explore sound every class session through experimentation with pitch, tempo, dynamics, and rhythm.

Want to test out our music wall for yourself? It's available to the public at Mishawaka Res, located next to the walkway leading to the nature center. Grab a stick and make a joyful noise!