Operating in the Element with Fiddleheads

Preschool is an important experience in the lives of youth. Preschool provides an opportunity for youth to build relationships and develop social skills, and it often serves as youth’s first formal educational setting, preparing them for kindergarten and beyond. While traditional preschool programs operate inside the classroom, some programs are taking the preschool experience outdoors.

The OYPC team recently had the opportunity to speak with Maddie Cole, Head of Fiddleheads Forest School since 2021. Fiddleheads is a nature-based preschool program operating in the Washington Park Arboretum. Maddie spoke with us about the history and impact of Fiddleheads, as well as goals for the school’s future. Maddie also provided us with insight on the unique considerations that arise from running a fully outdoor program, and how Fiddleheads adapts to the elements to create a safe, educational environment for youth.

What is Fiddleheads Forest School?

Fiddleheads is a school for families looking for something different from the typical preschool experience. Founded nearly a decade ago, Fiddleheads began as a single-classroom preschool program. Over time, Fiddleheads has expanded to include three classrooms and a variety of educational experiences, including morning- and full-day preschool, afternoon enrichment classes, and summer school programs. When we say “classrooms,” we aren’t talking about the typical learning environment one would imagine. Fiddleheads classrooms are designated areas centered within the beauty of the Arboretum, providing students with a truly unique learning environment. “The children are here anywhere from four to six hours. They are fully geared up for all kinds of weather and all kinds of adventures,” said Maddie. “It’s always really amazing to see the journey these kids go through.”

Aside from a few human-made necessities like bathrooms and books, Fiddleheads classrooms are entirely nature-based. Instead of chairs, there are tree stumps for students and instructors to sit on. In place of playground equipment, you’ll find log structures for students to play. As part of their classes, students explore their outdoor environment, examining bugs, birds, and plants while creating nature journals. Fiddleheads’ unique learning activities foster an appreciation of nature and a sense of stewardship within the students.

Impact: Fostering Healthy Development & Strong Communities

Fiddleheads helps its students develop several important skills as part of the learning experience. “The biggest things that we work on, and our biggest hopes and goals for them, are to develop a strong sense of independence and self-reliance and self-regulation,” Maddie shared, “working on independence with everything from zippers and lunch box containers to the bigger social pieces, recognizing their own emotions and feelings, recognizing ways that they can express those in a way that’s safe.” With these goals in mind, Fiddleheads is able to support youth in developing their sense of agency. As a preschool program, Fiddleheads also works to prepare students for kindergarten and beyond. Students spend time learning words, numbers, and more while also practicing classroom skills, such as circling up for group activities or raising hands to take turns speaking.

As mentioned earlier, a unique learning aspect of Fiddleheads is the sense of stewardship it fosters within its students. As a nature-based program, stewardship and the importance of caring for the space around us is centered in Fiddleheads classes.

We work very hard with them on a very strong sense of stewardship. We want them to really understand that this is a very special space and we work really hard to take care of it. So it’s our classroom for a few hours a day, but it’s the home of the animals and the plants.

Fiddleheads leads a variety of activities to build this stewardship within students, such as watering plants or building homes for worms in the park. The combination of stewardship practices with traditional preschool activities provides an enriching educational experience for Fiddleheads students.

On top of providing an excellent educational experience for youth, Fiddleheads serves as a great support for parents and families. As a licensed program with the Department of Children Youth and Families, Fiddleheads provides a method of childcare for parents with work or other commitments; this is a big boost for families that may not have access to other forms of childcare. “Now that we are licensed through the state, we are able to have them onsight longer, so we’re able to provide up to six and a half hours of childcare for families. So for working families or single-parent households, that is a huge difference.”

Fiddleheads also supports families by providing outdoor gear for students, including warm layers to bundle up and rainproof outerwear for being in the elements. While the gear is available to all families, Maddie spoke about the importance of prioritizing families in financial need, eliminating cost barriers and promoting equitable access to Fiddleheads. “We prioritize our financial need families… It helps them try things out before they invest, or it can help financial need families who wouldn’t be able to afford all of this new, but they can borrow it free of charge from us.”

Providing accessible outdoor gear ties into a major goal of Fiddleheads – creating an equitable environment for all. Fiddleheads strives to create a space that is accessible to all youth and families, a space that is inclusive and allows youth with different experiences and backgrounds to learn from each other. “We have a strong social justice and equity component, and we really believe very strongly that nature is accessible for everyone and we work really hard to ensure that,” said Maddie. To expand access to Fiddleheads, Maddie encourages all families to apply, even if they are not able to commit to full-day preschool. “We want our community to expand as much as possible, so even if folks are only able to come to summer camp, or only do afternoon enrichment, we really want them to feel connected to the Fiddleheads community.”

Fiddleheads’ support of youth and families and the positive impacts of their equity lens have led to the development of a strong alumni community, with many students staying connected with the Arboretum beyond their time with Fiddleheads. “[The Arboretum] is accessible to families on the afternoons, on the weekends, years later, and so the kids end up coming back with their families where they then are the guides because they know the space better than their families do. So it’s just this wonderful sense of ownership and agency for the children that can filter out to the family’s experience as well.” As a major alumni milestone, the very first class of Fiddleheads students is turning 14, making them eligible to become program volunteers. With one former student lined up to start volunteering soon, Fiddleheads hopes this can grow into a continued alumni volunteering program.

Adapting to the Elements

Compared to traditional school settings, Fiddleheads has unique challenges to consider as a fully outdoor program. The main area of focus is weather-related challenges. In Maddie’s time at Fiddleheads, there have been a handful of times where school had to close for the day due to lightning or snow and ice. Recently, increases in the amount of high-wind and smoke days have presented new concerns for Fiddleheads. Fiddleheads does not have an indoor space to move to when winds suddenly pick up, or when the air quality drops past a healthy threshold, and having to close on these days can be difficult for families relying on Fiddleheads for childcare. “It’s hard for families and we completely acknowledge that. We did extend our school year a little bit this year to try and make up for that. But that is a piece that is in progress.” To address weather-related closures, Maddie hopes to secure some mobile classrooms that can be in place as a backup option on bad weather days, allowing kids to stay in school and parents to maintain their childcare.

In addition to weather considerations, there are several measures in place to ensure students are safe in their outdoor learning environment. “We definitely have a lot of sources from the University of Washington,” said Maddie. “Our horticulture crew comes through and they do check-ins on our site, making sure that the trees look safe, limbs look safe, things like that.” Because we’re all University of Washington employees, we still do the safe interactions with youth training and the blood borne pathogens training and things like that.” Maddie also talked about working with the University’s disability services team to ensure all students and teachers have equitable access to Fiddleheads classes. The strong connections with various University resources allows Fiddleheads to maintain a safe environment for youth and teachers alike.

Continuing to Grow – Hopes for the Future

Fiddleheads has built a strong foundation of supporting families and youth rooted in equity, creating excellent educational experiences and strong communities. Even with all that has been done, there is still room for growth, especially as Fiddleheads continues moving out of COVID conditions. “We have a strong alumni community. Unfortunately with the pandemic, some alumni events were paused for a couple of years, so we’ve been trying to bring that back.” Maddie already has some plans in the works for bringing back community events, including family picnics, ivy pulls, and Earth Day events. To further strengthen community ties, Maddie would also like to implement mixed-class events. “I think [it] will be fun for the kids to shake things up a little bit, because they’ve been with just their class the whole year. But it’s also a really nice opportunity for our teachers, who also are only teaching with their teaching partner, to be able to sort of mix up a little bit more and just have a little bit more of an all-school feel.”

Expanding the Fiddleheads community beyond students and families, Maddie would like to see new partnerships with local organizations to provide additional services. One area for partnership is with play therapy and occupational therapy groups who are already doing supportive work with children. With Fiddleheads not having its own mental health clinicians, this partnership would make it easier to ensure all students’ developmental needs are assessed and met. “We do see children who, at this age, it’s hard to tell what is just sort of where a child is developmentally or what they’re used to, versus perhaps underlying neurodiversity or special needs that hasn’t been identified yet,” said Maddie. “I think being a small school, we are kind of in the process of reaching out to a lot more organizations for support on that, people who could come in to consult and programs that we already have in place for these kids.”

Other partnership goals are with organizations serving underprivileged families around Seattle. Fiddleheads currently sees most of its enrollment come from families near the Washington Park Arboretum, but Maddie wants to ensure that all families feel welcome to participate. “We’re really looking to expand that and to try to take down any barriers that are making it hard for families all over the area and all over the demographics to apply to us.” Moving forward, we can expect to see new partnerships that will further push Fiddleheads’ values of equity and social justice.

A Love for Nature

At the end of our conversation, Maddie spoke with us about how she got into this work and what makes nature-based preschool special. “I really fell in love with this particular age group,” she shared. “I really feel pretty strongly about all of the science behind how formative the early years are and how important it is to have very hands-on activities for children and very outdoor activities for children.” With Fiddleheads in particular, Maddie expressed the joy of working in a small school environment and getting to know and connect with each kid and parent, something that is missing from larger schools.

Maddie left us with a shoutout to the Pacific Northwest’s beautiful nature and the opportunities that come with it. “I love Fiddleheads and I’m very committed to being here,” she said. “Seattle and the Pacific Northwest in general have an abundance of nature-based preschools. A lot of them take different forms and different locations, but this is why I moved to the area, so I strongly encourage people to look into all of the different varieties of nature preschool out there!”

OYPC Visits Fiddleheads!

OYPC members, Nick and Sydnie, had the opportunity to tour the Fiddleheads classrooms with Maddie first hand! Unsure about how weather conditions would play out, we were able to continue our tour during the afternoon session despite the morning session being canceled due to a wind advisory.

This day was a great example to learn how Fiddleheads managed unexpected and unsafe weather conditions in a childcare setting in real time. Although the morning sessions were canceled, by monitoring weather conditions and staying up to date with University alerts, the afternoon session continued as the blue skies began to peak through the clouds.

We were able to observe story time with the staff and children, watched as they sang their “good-bye song” and how they interacted with nature and among each other. Although the area was still damp and cold from the morning rain, the students were bundled up and still enjoyed rolling around where they could! It was refreshing to see kids be kids in the beautiful natural classroom setting and it was obvious that a little wetness and rain never hurt anybody!

Overall, we were so grateful for the opportunity to meet with Maddie in person to check out this amazing youth program. It was nothing like what we had imagined – Fiddleheads Forest School is truly a unique experience for youth to be curious, be themselves, and learn the importance of kindness towards one another and Mother Nature.

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A big thank you to Maddie and the Fiddleheads community for continuing to do the work they do for our community. To learn more about Fiddleheads Forest School, check out their website here.