Mission & Values
Our mission is to spark a lifelong love of nature and curiosity in our learners through fostering a sense of wonder and embedding vitality and joy into the student’s educational experience by supporting their fundamental need to explore, discover, play, share, and create.
Philosophy
Saplings aspires to foster a student’s lifelong connection to place by using the materials around us to learn while we explore our local community’s natural playground. By fostering an intimate daily relationship with the natural world, suffused with observations and questions, our indoor and outdoor classrooms are saturated with emergent moments of inquiry, sensory entanglements, spontaneous learning opportunities, provocative conversations, and meaningful connections.
These connections to self, others, and place foster students’ lifelong understanding of the need for sustainable practices, while at the same time attending to their social-emotional needs. Seen as imaginative, inquisitive, and resourceful agents, students are given opportunities to link what they are thinking about to what they already know by operating fully with and in place.
Based on the idea that nature is a powerful teacher and challenging the idea that we as humans are separate from it, Saplings invites children into the natural world as a classroom.
Saplings aspires to create a space for every student where:
They can follow their passions and interests.
Learn from hands-on, real-world experiences.
Develop confidence and the skills necessary to investigate, collaborate, and document their learning journey.
Creating deep lasting, emotional connections with places are one way students learn about themselves and their role within their own environment.
Learn more about their own strengths, interests, and challenges.
Use multiple ways of learning, being, and expressing.
Benefit from the calming and inspiring effects of being in nature through creating and deepening relationships with this place.
Values
Excellence
We pursue excellence in everything we do.
Authenticity
We provide meaningful and relevant learning experiences.
Outdoors
The importance of learning with, in, and from our outdoor environment.
Inclusiveness
We treat everyone fairly. We respect, reflect, and appreciate the diversity in our community.
Innovation
We pursue innovation by encouraging curiosity and a spirit of inquiry.
Multiple ways of being
We value the many symbolic languages of students.
Accountability
We strive to be approachable, and to make our processes and decisions as open and transparent as possible.
Community Engagement
We forge connections with our community and welcome their input.
Documentation
We understand the importance of making learning visible and strive to use pedagogical documentation whenever possible.