New Outdoor Forest Preschool Opens in Croton

The Rewilding School announces the opening of its outdoor-based Forest Preschool program for the 2018 2019 school year for children ages 3 1/2 to 5. Based in Croton’s Brinton Brook Sanctuary, the Rewilding Forest Preschool will offer half-day morning and afternoon sessions starting this fall in an all-outdoor setting that includes meadows, streams, deep woods and a pond.

“Kids need to splash in puddles, crawl through bushes, pick up sticks, listen to birds, catch bugs, play in the snow, and dig for worms,” says the school’s founder Eric Stone. An experienced naturalist and primitive skills educator, Stone is also a certified wilderness skills instructor, wilderness first responder, and licensed New York State guide, with over a decade of professional guiding experience.

Through immersion in the natural world, Forest Preschool students discover their own connections to the land and each other. Students hear stories about wild plants and animals before acting out various aspects of forest life through games and imaginative play. Branches become “beaks” that the children use to find bird food, and forest debris becomes “nests” for forest creatures.

Participants can expect to help build fires, watch birds, forage for berries, play in snow, and shoot bows and arrows. They can also expect to come home with the occasional scrape or insect bite. “The outdoors can be a scary and unpredictable place,” Stone says, adding that “it is these qualities that make it a perfect environment for young kids to learn about risk and reward.”