"We are so incredibly blessed to live in such a beautiful part of the world. Vancouver Island holds so much magic and mystery deep within our dense forests and stormy ocean waters.
At Little Bears, our campus is a 4-acre forest, which then backs into an additional 50-plus acres of untouched forest land.
We have a special meeting place in the heart of the forest that we call the "Forest Piazza".
Another favorite spot is through the back gate and about a 15-minute walk towards Lost Lake. The "chimney" is a hidden gem where a small stream trickles, and a large brick chimney remains from what we think must have been an old family homestead from the early 1900's.
Every inch of the forest is a learning opportunity.
When considering a forest "Atelier," our outdoor environment is a canvas waiting to be uncovered.
Unlike a blank artist's canvas, the forest is a "living canvas" already rich with "paints" and "textures"-such as moss, mud, and light-that act as invitations for discovery.
This perspective shifts the educators roll as a co-researcher into one as also a co-creator.
The educators and children can use the forest's sensory details to express complex ideas through the "Hundred Languages of Children".

One of the best parts of being in the forest while the rain is pounding down on us is the smells and the sounds of the trees and the dirt.
A torrential downpour is NOT a reason to go indoors; it is actually a profound sensory shift that reconfigures the "Forest Atelier."

When the rain pours (which is often here in Victoria), the forest transitions from a static environment to a dynamic, high-definition playground that engages a child's very soul.

A Sensory Symphony
The most immediate transformation is auditory and visual. The forest floor, usually muted, begins to "speak" as raindrops strike different surfaces-the hollow drum of a cedar stump, the rhythmic patter on broad maple leaves, and the splashing into rising puddles.

The rain acts as a saturating lens, making the deep greens of BC's moss and ferns glow with fresh, neon intensity. All Colours intensify and become alive!

Forest creatures often hidden during the dry hours-frogs, slugs, snails, and worms emerge, offering spontaneous "pop-up" laughter and wonder on our living outdoor Atelier.

For our Little Bears, a puddle is much more than a splash-zone: it's a foundational laboratory for physics and engineering.

Children naturally begin to experiment with "loose parts" like sticks and rocks to create dams, bridges, or channels to direct water flow.

They observe cause and effect firsthand-why some objects float on the puddle while others sink, and how the water's surface reflects light and movement.

Navigating slippery stumps and jumping into muddy puddles builds physical coordination, risk assessment skills, and "grit".

Our Mud Atelier: AKA: Dirty rocks and dirty water

Rain transforms the forest floor into the ultimate open-ended medium.

Wet earth becomes a malleable "clay" for making mud pies, sculptures, or textured "paintings" on tree bark or rocks.
The "Squish" of mud between fingers and even toes provides a deep tactile experience that grounds children in the present moment, often reducing anxiety and improving focus.

***Side note: In the BC Early Learning Curriculum (ELF), one of my former staff members, Shannon McDaniel, has published a Pedagogical Narration, which was written in our forest Piazza at Little Bears!
She writes of her trepidation while removing her own boots and socks and allowing her bare feet into the mud. It's a brave and open look into an educator struggling with her own beliefs and comforts while working with children in an outdoor classroom.

There is a unique sense of autonomy and release that comes with being allowed to get wet and messy.
In an outdoor Atelier, "bad weather" is reframed as a "new world" to be conquered. This freedom fosters a sense of agency-the child is not a passive observer of the rain but an active participant in its lifecycle.

Ultimately, our outdoor classroom empowers our children to see themselves as capable, curious, and deeply interconnected with the beautiful forests of British Columbia. 
The unstructured nature of an outdoor atelier supports diverse learning styles and encourages collaborative problem solving that traditional indoor settings may not fully be able to capture. 
How lucky are we?
As always, thank you for reading. I would love to hear your comments or questions.

With gratitude,
Lexie
​

In the mist-heavy forests of British Columbia, Early Childhood Educators are teaching children to look beyond the visible and "listen" to the mycelium minds, the vast, invisible
fungal threads that serve as the neurological network of the forest.

The Philosophy of the "Wood-Wide Web"
British Columbia is a global hub for understanding these networks, largely thanks to the research of Dr. Suzanne Simard at the Mother Tree Project. Ece's in BC forest schools/Nature daycares use the mycelium as a primary metaphor for teaching.

*Interconnectedness:
Educators teach that trees are not isolated competitors but a living community. Through mycelial threads (hyphae), "Mother Trees" recognize their kin and send life-saving nutrients and chemical warnings to younger saplings.

*The Invisible Support:
Just as the most active part of a fungus is the underground mycelium, children are encouraged to value the quiet, unseen work of mutual care and cooperation.

*Social and emotional Growth:
In our Reggio-Inspired, natural outdoor classroom at Little Bears, we use the "mushroom underground" to illustrate how diverse species cooperate, an essential lesson for early social development. 

In practice, our ECEs facilitate "mycelium style" learning through specific outdoor experiences:

*Inquiry -Based Discovery: Our Reggio-Inspired, Forest Vision
​
In the forest, the children are researchers and investigators. The ECEs act as co-researchers alongside the children, encouraging and fostering relationships with human and non-human species. Our non-human relationships are those we form with the trees, the puddles, the nurse logs, the moss, the branches on the forest floor, the slugs, the crows, etc. The children adapt to using a mycelium-style of learning, which is a pedagogical approach that mirrors the interconnected, emergent, and non-linear nature of fungal networks.
Just as a mushroom is the visible sign of a massive underground network, our educators create documentation that makes the "invisible" learning process visible to parents and their colleagues.
Our Little Bears collect treasures such as leaves, bark, and moss to tell the story of their discoveries in the forest, reinforcing their role as active contributors to the forest's narrative.

Our 4-acre campus serves as a "living classroom" where the "wood-wide-web" isn't just a concept, but a tangible ecosystem children are taught to protect for future generations.
Through these invisible threads, discoveries and documentation, our educators are weaving a new kind of childhood-one rooted in the belief that we, like the trees, are never truly alone but always a part of a deeper, supporting web.

Thanks for reading.
With gratitude,
​Lexie

​

The dense forest floor in beautiful Sombrio Beach, BC.

As a forward-thinking, childcare advocate, I often find myself re-visiting The Hundred Languages of Children poem by our Late Reggio-rockstar/mentor, Loris Malaguzzi.
 "The Hundred Languages of Children" warns that "they steal ninety-nine" by separating the head from the body and science from imagination.

Malaguzzi argues that children are born with "a hundred" ways of thinking, expressing, and understanding the world. The warning that "they steal ninety-nine" refers to how conventional education and culture systematically strip away these diverse "languages" by enforcing a narrow, standardized way of learning.

*The "Perpetrators". The poem identifies "the school and the culture" as the entities that restrict a child's discovery and expression.

*The Loss of Potential: By prioritizing only a few forms of communication, typically verbal and logical, society silences others like dance, sculpture, painting, and play.

Key Philosophical Separations

The poem highlights several ways traditional systems fragment a child's holistic experience in the world:

*Head from the body: Traditional schooling often tells children to "think without hands" and "do without head, seperating physical action from intellectual inquiry.

*Science from Imagination: Malaguzzi critiques the idea that "science and imagination" or "reason and dream" are separate things. In the Reggio approach, these are viewed as deeply interconnected; a child is a "researcher" who uses both logic and fantasy to construct knowledge.

*Work from Play: The poem warns against the cultural insistence that work and play are separate, asserting instead that for a child, they are one and the same.

Supporting Evidence and Impact

*Multiple Intelligences: Modern research, including Howard Gardner's theory of multiple Intelligences, supports Malaguzzi's view that children possess diverse cognitive and expressive strengths.

 *The Whole Child: The philosophy emphasizes seeing the "whole Child" as strong, capable, and full of potential, rather than an "empty vessel" to be filled with information. 

*Pedagogical Documentation: To protect these "hundred languages, reggio educators use documentation, photos, transcripts, dirty notes, and artifacts -to make children's diverse processes visible and valued. By recording this information, the children are "leaving their mark" for future projects, connections, communication, and generational knowledge.

In a nature-based childcare centre like ours, the "100 Languages of children" philosophy transforms the outdoors from a simple playground into a vast, living laboratory for expression and inquiry.
By removing the 4-walls of a traditional classroom, educators allow children to use the natural world as a primary tool for communication and theory-building.

1. The Environment as the "Third Teacher."

In the forest, nature is not just a backdrop but an active participant in the learning process.

* Provocations: A simple "nurse-log" hosting ants and wood bugs or a slippery, shining path that follows a slug serves as a provocation that sparks immediate curiosity and leads to deep, child-led investigations. Our educators thoughtfully curate beautiful provocations indoors and outdoors to invite each child to explore with all 5 of their senses. Natural materials, loose parts, and beautiful treasures are used throughout the process, inviting communication, wonder, and curiosity.

*Dynamic Context: Unlike static indoor toys, the forest changes with the weather and seasons, providing a constantly evolving "curriculum" that responds to the child's daily observations.

2. Nature as a Symbolic Language

Children translate their outdoor experiences into various "languages" to process complex ideas:

*The Language of Biology: Exploring plant life cycles or the "circle of life" in a pinecone or a cedar branch.

*The Language of Physics: Testing gravity and speed by rolling logs down a hill.

*The Language of Art: using loose parts such as sticks, stones, mud, acorns, pinecones, arbutus branches, and moss to create ephemeral sculptures or temporary "homes" for forest creatures.

*The Language of Mathematics: Sorting and classifying natural objects by size, texture, or quantity (e.g., "Small stones" vs "large stones")

3. Fostering Empathy and Connection

The forest setting encourages "empathetic relating" to the natural world. For example, children may develop a sense of stewardship by carefully clearing snails from the path to prevent them from being stepped on, or by safely removing worms from the pavement and placing them on the grass. This demonstrates a "language" of care and reciprocity.

4. Documentation in the Wild

Educators in forest settings act as "researchers" and "translators."

*Visible Learning: They capture photos, record dialogue (Ex, "I wonder why....")
and keep physical Learning journals and documentation to make the child's invisible thinking processes visible to parents and the community.

*Revisiting ideas: By documenting a child's theory about why a puddle forms, the educator can later offer certain materials such as funnels, buckets, and water to help the child "test" and refine their theories.

Looking towards the future of childcare in BC, I have so many thoughts and questions around a promising  "Universal Educational System".
Will the Hundred languages of children be honoured through a "One-size-fits-all model?"

I guess we will have to wait and see....

Thank you for reading.
​With gratitude,

Lexie