Estes Children’s Cottage
Most certainly since the onset of Covid in 2020, our Nature Explore classroom has become exponentially more important as a viable place for the children to spend many of their hours while at Estes Children’s Cottage. This past year we replaced a bridge in our bamboo thicket, just worn down by users as it is involved in many play scenarios like Billy Goats’ Gruff and stories of their own creation. The mud kitchen continues to expand and is a very popular place for all of the children–this year expanding to restaurant play for the older children.
With our older children aging out and leaving us over the summer after spending 3 years here we welcomed several new one-year-olds, and as such there has been a shift in how the outside classroom is utilized. We lowered part of the counter space in the mud kitchen so it was accessible to our youngest children. Some of them came to us not yet walking, and many of the rest of them were still toddling. So we enhanced the yard by adding more toys to push and pull, as well as having buckets that they can fill and dump, and the trailers and other toys that can haul, even heavy things like the pumpkins and the grounds in the fall.
Our hill has become a new challenge for the ones to crawl to the top, while the 2’s and 3’s find more new ways to ride down or roll down alone or with someone else. The children who left us in the summer had accomplished climbing our “tree”, which is a very large holly bush, but seems mighty when you are a preschooler. They have learned to help each other with tips on how to climb, and a very nice phenomenon is that they never climb higher than they are comfortable, and they always do it without teacher assistance. We may guide but do not place them anywhere on the “tree” or get them down. It is a very popular place. In the summer there is gardening to help with and a water table with a pump which are enjoyed and utilized by just about every child.
A practice we have continued since our Covid time protocol is having the children check in at the gate to the play yard, rather than go into the classroom. For the new ones transitioning, it has often been less overwhelming than entering a classroom full of children they don’t know. Breakfast and lunch is outside for the older children and all ages eat afternoon snack outdoors, so our preschoolers eat all meals outdoors and all children eat at least one meal outdoors.
We have a band of chipmunks who enjoy the fact that we eat meals outside and when Chippy shows up, the children like watching what he does, and, they are all “Chippy” whomever comes around. Then squirrels also come through the play yard but more often when the children have vacated the fenced-in area. They particularly are interested in the pumpkins lying about in the fall, and enjoy gnawing holes in them and once in a while they go completely inside and the children from inside can see them hop out of the hole. We have also had a fawn stay in close proximity to the fence for awhile so the children got to see it up close, and also a hawk, who makes the chipmunks go running if he comes around. Deer come through our yard on a regular basis. The outside of our fenced area is also utilized as part of our outdoor play space. After losing a lovely oak tree due to its infringement on our water lines, we had it cut up into stump size pieces and we made our own “stump jump”. There are enough stumps for seating or walking from one to another, and it is adjacent to our large magnolia tree which feels like a place you can get lost in. We also are continuing our weekly woods hikes, taking advantage of the 35 acre woods adjacent to our house, and beyond part of that is our public library. The children love going to the outside to see the statues they have erected. An enhancement to our front porch (used for snack time, rainy day play extension, and music and movement activities for the preschoolers) is adding planter boxes full of wild flowers and plants which not only enhance the environment but also help guide the children where there boundaries are while playing on the porch. It also guides parents as to where to enter and leave from the porch. Maintaining 2 our outdoor space is a continuous process, either for repairs, or additions and has been since we opened 19 years ago.
