—And Kind Neighbors

How Nature Preschoolers Embrace Friends of All Abilities

This past summer Shannon Szymikowski was flying with her daughter Keira, age 5, when another young child at the airport got upset and started to shout. Other travelers stared as the child became increasingly distraught; Keira asked her mom what was happening, and Shannon explained that the child was having trouble because traveling wasn’t going smoothly. Keira responded, “Oh, they need to get her some music.”

Keira had just wrapped up her school year at the Garden’s Nature Preschool, where her classroom was the first to include students from TrueNorth, an education cooperative for students with disabilities. Keira remembered that one of her TrueNorth friends used music to calm down.

“To see Keira become more aware and observe other people’s behavior based on things that would come up in her classroom was incredible,” Shannon said. “She had tools in her toolbox to be kind to other children.”

For these preschoolers, the logic is simple: Different people need different things, and if you can help, you help.

Nature Preschool and TrueNorth friends dancing to The Nutcracker music.

 

Inclusion as a north star

Through a new partnership currently in its second year, 3-to-5-year-olds in the Nature Preschool explore the Garden alongside their TrueNorth friends; they plant seeds together, pull each other in sleds in winter, and even help operate each other’s learning equipment.

TrueNorth, which supports North Shore school districts with early childhood services, reached out to the Nature Preschool in January 2024 looking for a space for their own extended-day preschool program—and the Garden, with its Learning Campus and renowned preschool, seemed like a perfect fit. For children with sensory issues, nature is a great regulator; as Amber Schmiesing, TrueNorth’s early childhood level lead, said, it “puts them at ease.”

TrueNorth students come to the Garden daily from 8:50 a.m. to 1:50 p.m.; they have their own classroom at the Garden’s Learning Center, staffed by a TrueNorth teacher, teaching assistants, and occupational, physical, speech, and other therapists who rotate through. TrueNorth students also have “homerooms”—Nature Preschool classrooms where they spend their mornings learning together with the Nature Preschoolers.

“We’re the blending factor,” said Ann Halley, Nature Preschool director at the Garden. “When you begin helping children who are 3, 4, 5 years old to notice that everyone is unique, to develop that inclusiveness that is so needed in today’s world…I like to think that as they grow, they’ll become inclusive adults.”

 

 

 

Mother Nature leads the way

Nature Preschool follows the seasons with activities like nature walks and birding, tree climbing, snow painting, and planting. Weather is rarely a deterrent, and neither is getting a little dirty; on any given day you might find students exploring the Learning Campus hills in the rain, or planting in the Grunsfeld Children’s Growing Garden with dirt-smudged cheeks.

From learning to sense your own body by identifying when you’re hot or thirsty, to developing fine motor skills by handling seeds, spending time in nature allows preschoolers to hit milestones organically, said Emma Walter, assistant Nature Preschool director. And for TrueNorth students, nature presents opportunities to work on learning goals in ways they’re excited about.

One TrueNorth student was practicing using a switch to make choices, turn things on and off, and communicate. The class realized he loved watering but had trouble holding a watering can, so they found a solution: “They were able to hook the watering can up to his switch, so another student would hold the watering can, and he was very motivated to use the switch,” Emma said.

Another student loved running; he started joining the Nature Preschool students to run over the Learning Campus hills. “He realized this group activity was happening and wanted to be part of it,” Amber said. Sharing experiences with other people was one of his learning goals. “He would look at the other students to go in the direction they were going, or stop if they were stopping, which is a really big skill to have, and something that’s hard to teach. But he picked up on it in that environment.”

What’s important here, Amber said, is that everyone, whether or not they have a disability, is working on something.

“Everyone at Nature Preschool is coming from a strengths-based lens,” Amber said. “They’ll say, he’s a really good climber, he loves climbing. Rather than seeing it as a problem—‘he’s climbing all over the furniture’—it shifts the mindset about how we view kids.”

Growing a neighborhood

One 4-year-old Nature Preschooler described the TrueNorth students as her “TrueNorth neighbors”: They visit the Nature Preschool classrooms, and at the end of their time they go back to their own classroom, but they’re all part of the same community.

Their neighborhood, of course, includes educators. TrueNorth and Nature Preschool staff are in constant communication; Ms. Heather, the TrueNorth lead teacher, co-led a professional development about collaboration with a Nature Preschool colleague. Emma invited a TrueNorth staff member into her classroom to help with strategies to keep active kids engaged during circle time. It’s a model that empowers teachers as well as students. Shannon, who previously taught kindergarten for 10 years, was so inspired by the program—as an educator as well as a parent—that she became a Nature Preschool teacher.

“The biggest takeaway for me was the empathy that my daughter has,” Shannon said. “Understanding how other people think, how they interact, and that not all communication is verbal.” Like the classmate who vocalized to show his emotions; his peers understood when he was happy and when he was upset, when he needed his music box.

“The other students were able to read his cues and recognize, when people have a hard time, we can be there for them,” Emma said. The students are curious, not judgmental—and through curiosity, they learn about their peers in ways that grow respect and friendship.

“As a parent of a child with special needs, and I know I’m not alone in thinking this, I really want my child to have friends,” parent Jamie said. So when her daughter Daniela, a TrueNorth student, got invited to several birthday parties in her first year at the Nature Preschool, Jamie was over the moon. “[The students know] that’s what makes the world so beautiful—that not everybody is the same.”