TimberNook: Outdoor Learning
Twice a month, our preschoolers head outside for theme-based, imagination-led play on our state of the art playground.
Time and space to play deeply
Blossom Station offers an enrichment program for our preschool children centered on outdoor experiences. Twice a month, TimberNook staff bring theme-based activities that give children sensory, motor, and social experiences on our playground.
These activities encourage children to use their imagination and critical thinking, and to negotiate materials with their classmates, expanding their play in new and unique ways. Staff step back to empower age-appropriate risk-taking and deep, process-oriented learning.
The research behind TimberNook
Emotional balance
Plenty of movement helps the body regulate emotions, and time in nature promotes calmness and improved mood.
Social skills
Unrestricted outdoor time leads to creative social adventures, as children build together and invent games.
Attention
Daily outdoor play improves attention span, as movement stimulates the brain for sustained focus.
A natural playscape built for discovery
Sandy building zones, rolling grass mounds, tunnels, and climbing structures give children room to explore, take healthy risks, and play deeply.
Apple Day on the playground
One recent session was all about apples. Children gathered them in metal buckets, rolled them down gutter ramps, smashed them with rubber mallets (goggles on), stamped them in paint, and ran a pretend apple shop with a toy cash register.
What a TimberNook session looks like
Every session starts before the children arrive. TimberNook staff set the stage with an invitation to play: on Apple Day that meant a mud kitchen built from tree stumps, pans, and bowls, apples tucked around the playground, gutter ramps on the grass mound, and a big canvas with trays of paint.
Then the adults step back. Children choose what to explore, decide how to use the materials, and work things out with their friends. One child spends the morning filling a bucket, another runs the shop, and a group discovers that an apple rolls faster down the steep side of the ramp. That freedom is the point: children practice planning, problem solving, and negotiating, and they move their bodies in big, satisfying ways.
Because the theme changes every session, there is always something new to discover, and children come back to the classroom calmer, more focused, and full of stories to tell.
TimberNook questions from parents
The most important thing about child care is safety and trust. In my nearly 10 years of having a child enrolled at Blossom, I never had any doubt that my child was looked after by caregivers who were well-trained, capable, and trustworthy. I would not hesitate to recommend Blossom Station to anyone.James, parent of four Blossom Station children
See where the adventures happen
Tours are offered Mondays to Wednesdays, 9:30am to 3:00pm.