La Verne Parent Participation Preschool (LVPPP) is a small but mighty early childhood learning center located in the Los Angeles County suburb of La Verne, California. LVPPP brought their young students outside—all day—starting in January 2021.

The school already had some of their school day outside before the pandemic, but ramped up to one hundred percent outdoors to keep their community safe and healthy, a decision made with the help of the school’s board. The idea to re-open fully outdoors also stemmed from research about the health and well-being benefits for children who spend significant time outside and guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Program Director Liz Slocum Tomashefsky believes that all children deserve to have the choice to be outside. She notes that, “Taking our learning outdoors is quite literally a breath of fresh air for our staff and our children!”

Tomashefsky hopes that beyond the pandemic, they can continue to offer the outdoors as a permanent options for LVPPP’s young students.

Small group table area for the 4 and 5 year old group.

INTERVIEW WITH SCHOOL STAFF

In November 2021, Liz Slocum Tomashefsky, Program Director of La Verne Parent Participation Preschool shared with us how the school took advantage of the outdoor spaces to create joyful, safe learning.

Q: Tell us a little about your school, such as core values, what the community is like, and how it was established.

Liz Slocum Tomashefsky: La Verne Parent Participation Preschool (LVPPP) is a parent cooperative preschool, established in 1971 in Claremont, California, and later moved to La Verne. We are a non-profit, non-discriminatory parent organization, owned and operated by member families. Our mission is to create a thriving early education and child care program that deeply respects and nurtures the potential that exists in each individual child, teacher, and family. We strive to create an environment rich in respect, individuality, and support for diversity. Our unique program provides a strong foundation for learning, and actively engages family and the community to provide a positive and nurturing learning environment for each individual child. 

Q: Did your school use outdoor spaces before the COVID-19 pandemic? If so, how?

LST: LVPPP has a very large, beautiful outdoor space that was utilized part-time prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The children split their time inside and outside, prior to the pandemic.

Q: How and when did your school start to use outdoor spaces during the COVID-19 pandemic?

LST: After 9 months of closure due to the pandemic, we decided to re-open our doors in January 2021, but this time operating fully outdoors.

Making mud pies in the rain!

School Data

• School website

• School type: Private

• Grade levels: Preschool, ages 2 through 5

• Student enrollment: 45

• Faculty: 4

Location

• La Verne, California, located in Los Angeles County about a hour hour drive from downtown Los Angeles.

• Population is about 31,000, though students are from the surrounding area including San Dimas, Claremont, Glendora, Pomona, Covina, and Azusa.

Climate

• Located at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains, La Verne has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate.

• Damp, mild winters: lows are between 40°F and 50°F, though rarely below freezing

• Warm to hot, dry summers: 85°F to over 100°F

• Precipitation: 35 days per year

• Rainfall: about 12-15 ” per year

Outdoor Learning Infrastructure Overview

• Before COVID

  1. Students were outside for fifty percent of their day — half the day inside and half the day outside.

• During COVID 

  1. Number of outdoor classrooms and spaces added or improved due to COVID and capacity is about 2 classrooms. All learning centers set up outdoors, and snack-time is outdoors.

  2. Students are outside one hundred percent of the day — all day!

*Sources: LVPPP Program Director, NOAA

Getting Started

Q: How did you support your staff and school community to take learning outside this year — who came up with this idea and how did that idea grow?

LST: It was a collaborative decision between myself and the Board, to take learning outside this year. Our school is a very COVID conscious school, so we wanted to offer classes to our children and families in the safest way possible. When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released that outdoors was the safest place to be during the pandemic, we agreed that utilizing our outdoor space was the best possible solution to staying healthy and safe, but still offering our early education services to our families.

We are not currently collaborating with any educational partner organizations. We do a lot of research from organizations that support outdoor learning. I send resources to my staff and families such as:  1,000 Hours Outside. I also refer to the book, There’s No Such Thing as Bad Weather, by Linda Åkeson McGurk quite often. I also used my knowledge from when I taught at University for La Verne, and my students observed at A  Little Patch of Earth preschool in San Clemente, California. This school ran completely outdoors, all year round. It was so magical to see how ALPOE operated, and how the staff and children LOVED learning outdoors, every single day! We are also a Reggio Emilia inspired school. This philosophy encourages learning in and around nature, so taking our learning outdoors really aligns with the Reggio Emilia Philosophy that we try to incorporate at our school every day. 

Dramatic play and reading and literacy area for the 4 and 5 year old group.

Q: Please describe the furnishings and outdoor classroom infrastructure—such as shade structures, seating, storage, and fencing. Who chose it and how was it obtained and funded?

LST: Although we are a fully outdoor preschool, we still strive to create a homelike environment for our children and families. We have two to three large canopies that provide shade in our outdoor classrooms. We also use rugs to create a comfortable space to sit and relax outdoors. We have brought many of our indoor furniture outdoors, including: wooden cubbies, wooden closets for dress up clothes, as well as wooden chairs and tables for the children to sit, relax, and create their masterpieces!

We put up a temporary fence divider, so we can offer two different classrooms and keep our cohorts separate and stable. We use heavy base traffic cones, with wooden fences zip-tied to the poles. This fence runs along the middle of our yard, creating two separate classrooms. The Board collaborates about decisions like this, and we usually purchase items we need through Amazon or Home Depot.

We have received some funding from the California Small Business COVID-19 Relief Grant Program, as well as the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) Loan, which has since been forgiven. We also received a stipend from licensing to help with COVID-19 related funding. All of this has helped us fund any additions we have needed in our outdoor classroom.

Q: Which features or design elements of your outdoor spaces mattered most this year—such as shade, seating, size of space, aesthetics, trees, nature—and why? What did staff and students like most?

LST: The most important element of our outdoor classroom was creating a homelike and whimsical experience for the children. We did add three new canopies for additional shade—on top of our two large mulberry trees! We hung some traditional Mexican Papel Picado flags on the underside of our canopies. We also have beautiful scarves wrapped around our mulberry tree trunks. Carpets are set out around our classroom, as well as some furniture from inside. The children can explore nature in all of her glory, but also sit and relax in a comfortable, homelike space. All in the beautiful, fresh outdoors! 

Play area with sand pit, slide, and a mud kitchen.

Q: How is it going for you now? Please describe the logistics involved with being outside, such as scheduling, preparing teachers/staff, providing outdoor clothing for students, and funding.

LST: Our outdoor classroom is working really well for us! We are lucky to live in Southern California, where the weather cooperates with us ninety-nine percent of the time. Even in rainy days, we remind parents to pack rain boots, umbrellas, and rain coats so the children can jump in puddles and dance in the rain! I provide my staff with resources to help them understand the importance of learning outdoors, and incorporating nature in almost all of their curriculum planning. The children love it so much, it’s hard to imagine us returning to our indoor spaces!

Q: Considering your students’ social, emotional, cognitive, and mental well-being: how does their behavior, general mood, well-being, and ability to learn and participate in outdoor spaces compare with before the pandemic when more time was indoors?

LST: Taking our learning outdoors is quite literally a breath of fresh air for our staff and our children! We have noticed that the children are better able to focus on small group and provocation tables that the teachers set out for them. I think it helps that they are able to move their bodies around as they wish and need. I believe that the fresh air and ability to move around freely outdoors helps them regulate much better than an indoor space. When we operated indoors, there were days that the children had high energy and seemed to NEED the outdoors. Now, this is available to them twenty-four-seven during their time at school, and we are all loving it!

Q: Anything you’d like to share about parent/family/staff mood or well-being with the outdoor space set up?

LST: I can’t speak for our parents. The staff here are adapting quite well to the outdoor classroom. Once we made the decision to use our indoor furniture outside, it made it easier to see the outdoors as a classroom. While nature alone provides so much for the children, the day to day routines and structure of a preschool classroom is much more manageable with the proper tools and resources that the teachers need. Letting go of the fear that certain materials might get “dirty” or “weathered” outdoors, really helped us see that an outdoor classroom is such a magical, beautiful way for children to not only learn, but THRIVE!!

Searching for “dinosaur fossils” in a garden bed.

LVPPP involves nature in much of its curriculum planning.

Q: What would you say have been the 3 biggest successes, and the 3 biggest challenges of holding school outdoors?

LST: The three biggest successes of our outdoor classroom are:

1) The safety and security that families have, knowing we are being as safe as possible during a global pandemic. 2) We see how learning outdoors is so beneficial for children. I really want to keep the outdoor classroom going, long after the pandemic is over! 3) The ability to appreciate Mother Nature in all of her glory. It has taught me, the teachers, and our children that rain, cold, and hot hot days are all the different colors of Mother Nature. It’s given us such an appreciation for the beautiful outdoors. 

The three biggest challenges of a fully outdoor classroom are:

1) Since we are in Southern California, during fire season the air quality can become quite unsafe. We’ve had to set a plan in place. If the Air Quality Index reaches 150 or more, classes will be cancelled. 2) Some parents need guidance and understanding that learning outdoors, even in colder or “not so ideal” weather conditions, is actually so beneficial for their children! I try to send resources about this monthly. 3) We haven’t had this issue yet, but as time goes on, I would imagine that some of our materials will need replacing much faster. As the sun beats down on them, and rain falls on the wood and metal materials we have, we may need to replenish some of our furniture and materials much faster than if we were to remain indoors.

Q: Would you recommend that other preschools and early learning centers try this? If yes, what advice you would offer them?

LST: Absolutely! The advice I would give other schools is: 1) Don’t be afraid of the weather! 2) Take advantage of learning in nature, and observe how well the children do when you are fully outdoors! 3) Be a resource for parents who try to fight the outdoors. There is so much research out there now about how learning in nature is actually MORE beneficial for children. Do some research, advocate, and help your families understand the importance of learning outdoors.

Q: Please tell us how your experience with outdoor learning this year shifted and/or didn’t shift your thinking about outdoor learning and its benefits and challenges.

LST: I 1,000% want to remain an outdoor preschool. When we do decide to open our indoor classrooms again, I want the children to be able to choose whether they want to play indoors or outdoors. I think this is a choice the children should have, and I want to be able to provide as much outside time as possible.