Painted Oak Nursery School, a nature-based preschool, has moved to the Rambling Pines Summer Day Camp campus in Hopewell and is enrolling for the 2016-17 academic year.
Formerly located at the Pennington Straube Center, the school can now accommodate more families and provides an expansive and scenic wooded area for students to explore.
In the fall of 2014, Painted Oak Nursery School became the first preschool in Mercer County to offer a nature immersion program three days a week on the premise that research continues to support that connecting children to the natural world benefits their development.
On forest school days, Painted Oakers gear up in rain or snow gear, depending on the weather, and can be found climbing trees, listening to birds, tracking animals or building shelters in the areas surrounding the school.
In addition to forest school, which features teacher-led instruction, children spend time in the outdoor classroom.
Within this space built by teachers and parent volunteers, one can find a “music house” where sticks connect with wind chimes and seashells to produce a play time soundtrack, loose parts that together create a changing landscape of fairy houses, climbing structures and more, and a “mud kitchen” that serves mud pies and rock stew daily.
Indoors, Painted Oak Nursery School has an art studio in which students are able to draw, paint, model from clay, build sculptures and structures, and create with loose parts such as paper, beads, wire and foil.
The preschool is accepting applications for the 2016-17 school year. To learn more, visit www.paintedoak.org or call 609-466-1010 to schedule a tour.
