What We Learned in Preschool
With the kickoff of summer, it also means the end of NSEA’s first preschool year! In September of 2025, we began our first official preschool class after five successful summers of Camp Keystone. Our campus was already set up to host preschool-aged youth, and it just needed a handful of modifications to become a full school-year program through the winter months. We learned a ton during our nine months spending every single day outside, and the kids did too. Through the crisp fall days, a wet and cold winter, and finally the slow transition to sunshine and warmth again in the spring, the preschool class spent every moment of their five hour days outdoors on NSEA’s campus or at a local nature spot.
Our class started off small and continued to grow throughout the school year. This allowed our teaching staff to take their time developing our emergent curriculum lessons and stay in tune with what our students were interested in learning about. As more kids joined our class throughout the year, we continued to build upon themes and ideas of learning through play. The class began to explore more areas of campus, asking more inquisitive questions, or noticing things for the first time.
This learning through play connects wonderfully with NSEA’s core vision: creating healthy watersheds that sustain abundant salmon, which we do by engaging with our community. While preschoolers might not know how to define a watershed, they were able to experience where water flows during heavy rainstorms, how the rain flow carries things with it (often human-made objects too, if they are left out), and how the trees give us shade – keeping us cool on hot, sunny days. Preschoolers also learned about the invasive Himalayan blackberry, as they saw firsthand how it grows quickly over plants, and even grew into their nature bathroom spot. Tying this in with trips to the Bellingham Library to visit baby salmon created opportunities for experiences and discussions about our awesome salmon neighbors and how we can take care of them.
Throughout the school year, we would often hear “Teacher! Come here and look what I found!” from across the forest. Preschoolers would constantly point out a new slug they found, or shells of nuts left by squirrels, or even tiny beetles suddenly up close. Their awareness of the world around them grew as they became more in-tune with the subtle changes in our environment. This opened the students up to experience more empathy for one another, grow in their communication skills, and develop more as individual people away from their families.
While NSEA’s six-acre campus allowed us to romp and stomp around in various types of environments, we also greatly enjoyed going on field trips around the county. Our favorite place to visit was Hovander Park in the spring. The preschool class arrived to blooming flowers, a giant tower they climbed over and over again, and a boardwalk trail that allowed them to crouch down low to see water bugs and frogs in the marsh. Again, our emergent curriculum approach allowed educators to pause with children, notice what they see, and prompt further inquiry. While not everyone walked all the way down the trail, students were able to explore more what interested them and open up the world around them.
In total for our first school year, we had nine students in our class who collectively spent over 800 hours outdoors enjoying all the wonders and beauty of nature while at preschool. These numbers don’t mean as much as each individual moment of course. We experienced so much laughter, joy, wonder, curiosity, and surprise during our year outdoors together. We are grateful to the families who joined our program in the first year, and we’re excited to see what year two has in store!
By Grace Maxa, Education Coordinator