Forest kindergarten teacher Emily Gamache on worms, weather, and why helping a child grow sometimes means standing back.

At the base of a giant sequoia, Emily Gamache watched a three-year-old try and fail to pull herself onto its lowest branch.

The girl was barely three, with “squatty little legs,” Gamache remembers. She wanted to be lifted onto the branch.

The teachers had a rule: “We’ll help you down, but you have to be able to get up by yourself.”

She kept trying, growing more frustrated with the teachers.

Then, finally, she got her leg up and stood on the branch.

“The look on her face made me cry,” Gamache says. “She was shaking, she was so excited.”

A few days later, she was climbing well beyond that first branch.

“How lackluster would it have been for her if I’d just done it for her?” Gamache says. “She wouldn’t have had that moment of, ‘Wow, I really did it.’ I would have stripped that from her.”

At Sol Shine Nature Preschool, where Gamache is director and lead teacher, adults can coach from the ground, but they don’t lift a child or place her foot on a branch. The rule serves two purposes: It gives teachers a clear sense of what she can safely do, and it gives her the full pride of doing it herself.

Sol Shine is a state-licensed forest kindergarten whose classroom is the Yakima Area Arboretum in central Washington. Children ages three to six spend the school day outdoors in most weather, and the curriculum is whatever they happen to be curious about.

Wildhaven: You spent years teaching indoors. How did the shift outdoors happen?

Emily Gamache: I think my love for being outside was always stronger than I realized, and I didn’t know how much I needed it until I began working outdoors. Growing up on a farm, all summer we slept outside, not in a tent, but in our sleeping bags next to the fire.

I didn’t realize how overstimulated I had been until I began spending my days outside. I noticed changes in my physical health, my mental health, just things within myself shifting. I thought, “Man, this has got to be true for kids too.” They’re such energy feelers.

What feels different about teaching children outdoors?

Well, for one, when you’re indoors, there’s just so much stuff. It can be overwhelming, especially at a young age.

Inside, you spend a lot of time helping children resolve conflicts over all those things: “You took my Lego,” or whatever it may be. There’s a lot of learning in that, but outside we’re doing it in a different way.

With sticks, not Legos.

Right. But there’s so much less conflict, and the way they navigate it with one another in a wide-open space, where they can literally breathe, is much more pleasant for everyone. They have a moment to take a breath and look at the trees, or whatever might soothe them.

Now I tell people, “You will not catch me in a traditional classroom.” I hope we change the script so outdoor classrooms become normal here in the States.

Did that shift toward outdoor teaching begin before Sol Shine?

At A Little Darling School in Bellingham, we had a program called Ladybugs. We took the children on city buses to local parks. I was the campus director, so I wasn’t always able to go with them, but the kids loved it. Even on really crummy days, they still wanted to go back: “We love it. Let’s go!”

And at Sol Shine, what’s the model?

We follow a traditional forest kindergarten model. Our curriculum is emergent. We take whatever the children are focused on and deepen it.

So, the worms.

The worms! Every day, all about it. They dig for worms, and we bring in magnifying glasses and books. We learn what worms do for the soil and maybe make a worm habitat, or whatever they want to do. We guide the learning and make it juicier for them.

Is that harder than following a set curriculum, or easier?

It depends on your personality type. Easier for me, for sure. But going with the flow is hard when you’re a grown-up. You’ve lived in a structured space for so long that you’re retraining your brain to just go with it.

How do you know when to step in and when to let kids take the lead?

There’s a very fine line. Bev Bos, a longtime advocate for play-based learning, had a simple philosophy: “Get out of their way.” At her teacher trainings, grown-ups were expected to be completely hands-off. The activity might be Play-Doh. She’d put flour, salt, and cups of water on a huge table, and you would say nothing to direct the kids.

It doesn’t necessarily turn out to be Play-Doh, does it?

It could end up as Play-Doh, but we don’t know, and it’s not our job to tell them. That’s the magic of it. What does it look like through their eyes? It’s whatever they want their Play-Doh to be.

That “stand back and get out of their way” approach, blended with sprinkles of safety, lets them learn on their own.

We’re also trying to instill autonomy outdoors, the ability to check in with themselves: “Am I cold? Am I too hot? Do I need water?”

We ask, “How are you feeling?” instead of “Are you cold?” The second you say, “Are you cold?” they’re like, “Oh yeah, I’m cold. I need a jacket.” But they might not actually be.

We let kids check in with themselves and identify their needs without inserting what we’re thinking.

So what does that look like in practice?

We had one little girl who wanted to wear her tutu to class in the middle of winter. She had a shirt and sometimes a sweater, but she resisted the extra layers her mom brought.

At drop-off, her mom tried, “We have to put your layers on.” The little girl cried and flailed.

We wanted to help her recognize what her body needed without turning the clothing into a power struggle. We stayed beside her, watched her closely, and kept asking, “Do you want to sit and have a hug? What do you need?” We let her experience some discomfort, but never to an unsafe level.

About three days in, I said, “What happens if you really like the warm layer? We’ll put the tutu over it. I am not going to tell you to sacrifice the tutu by any means.”

And she was like, “Oh, yeah. OK.” But it was of her own accord. We weren’t shoving it at her. It was: “How are you truly feeling? I honor the way you’re feeling.”

I think that same [approach] also applies to creating a thirst for learning, which is what we’re really trying to do. What if we let them figure this out a little bit and give them some autonomy? Then they have a thirst for it.

Some parent reading this is still picturing that three-year-old at the top of a tree.

Oh, no, as fun as that would be. We’re right there, and we assess the landing zones before they do risky things. Are there roots underneath? That sort of thing.

And the payoff is real. One of our older kids has been climbing so long that I’ve never seen a more confident climber. I know adult rock climbers, and I’ve never seen someone so at peace being off the ground. She’ll drape herself over two limbs like a leopard in the jungle. We stay right there and watch her because she can get so relaxed she starts to doze like a giant cat.

There’s this idea of “container kids”: We overschedule children and move them from one indoor space to the next. We’re born connected to nature, and then we gradually lose it. We’re trying to prevent that.

Let’s keep that sense we’re born with. We want to be connected to the land and to honor the people who walked on it before us.

How do you get through the days you don’t feel like being out there?

It’s all about acclimation. We’ve been programmed not to be okay with weather.

The saying we use in forest kindergarten is: “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad gear.” That applies more to winter. There’s only so much you can do in summer; you can only take off so many layers.

Some of these kids are working like they’re running a marathon. Even on the coldest day, imagine running a marathon in a parka. Other kids don’t move as much, or move more slowly. They identify what they need, which may be different from the kid who never stops moving.

“Gear makes or breaks it, straight up, for anyone outside, regardless of age. If you’re comfortable, you’re happy.”

What do you tell a parent who wants to get outside more with their kids?

I try to see it through a child’s mind. Their version of “expansive” is different from ours.

There can be just as many experiences outside your door as on an extreme backpacking trip with your kids. What does this roly-poly activity look or feel like to them? It can be just as beautiful as an intense trek.

How would you address fears of going on a bigger outdoor adventure with kids?

Kids base their comfort level on what their grown-ups are doing. If you aren’t comfortable, they’ll sense that, and it probably won’t be comfortable for them either. Their receptors are so powerful at that age because they’re still learning to communicate. Everything is based on feeling.

When I worry about safety on a bigger excursion, I remind myself that, sadly, people are much scarier than almost anything we’re likely to encounter in the woods.

You never know. Going into it might be a little nerve-racking as a mama, but you might get out there and end up feeling this deep sense of peace, like, “Man, this is the best we’ve ever felt.”

Where do you personally go outside when you want to feel like yourself again?

I love water, and I grew up doing many water-related activities. Night swimming under a full moon is the best.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. Children’s names and identifying details have been omitted.

Note

Forest kindergarten is commonly traced to Denmark. Washington was the first state to permanently license outdoor preschools; Sol Shine operates under that framework.