Play and Nature Based Early Childhood Education

If children are to care for the earth, they must love it first.

The Garden School is a preschool situated on a one-acre hobby farm in the Satank neighborhood of Carbondale. Surrounded by open pasture and mountain views, and steps from the Rio Grande Trail, children at The Garden School cultivate a meaningful relationship with the natural world.

Every day of a young child’s life is spent learning, often through the means of play. The role of the educator at The Garden School is to foster children’s inherent sense of wonder by allowing for discovery and exploration. Children are, by nature, some of the most clever architects, storytellers, problem solvers and dreamers. They need the time and opportunity to show us what they are capable of, and we need to see and listen and care.

“Play is really the work of childhood.”

– Fred Rogers