Tideview Nature School in Cole Harbour, N.S., wants to connect children to nature.
“If we think back to our childhood, this is what childhood is, it’s being outdoors, it’s playing, it’s engaging with the community,” says Jessie Zhao, co-founder of Tideview Nature School.
After moving from British Columbia, where there were numerous forest school options, Zhao and her husband, Mike L’Italein, started their own program after not being able to find any locally.
“The cognitive engagement, the focus, the creativity and even being able to challenge themselves physically, mentally that’s just not something you get in a very structured indoor environment,” says Zhao.
At forest school, the classrooms are local parks throughout the HRM, where, with supervision, the students create the lesson plan.
“It’s child-led focus, so we see what they want to do. We brought them over to the shelter to build a fort and eventually it turned into throwing rocks in …