Tour

Visiting The Nest

The open house tours are scheduled typically, but not always, on the 3rd Tuesday of each month, from October-May.

For the health and safety of our community, The Nest will not be offering any tour for the foreseeable future due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

PLEASE NOTE: Registration for the tour is not necessary but we do ask that participants arrive promptly at the time the tour begins.

September 2021 — Virtual Tour

Our outdoor space welcomes children with greenery planted by the students with the help of our Naturalist. Our movement educator spends time running, playing basketball, and organizing games in this space.

Our Piazza is the first thing you see when you enter the front door. Under normal circumstances this would be a place for interactions between classrooms. We would also eat our meals here. However, due to precautions triggered by the pandemic, we use this space for individual classrooms to do small group work. The oldest class is often seen working with clay or putting together puzzles. The infants use this space for sensory and color explorations. Our Music and Movement Educator encourages children to work with instruments and sing songs. It is truly a multipurpose space.

The Yellow Room starts accepting children as young as three months old. Much of the day is spent with daily care tasks, such as feedings, naps, and diapers. However, the teachers put great thought into designing a classroom that invites sensory experiences and provocations surrounding color, light, and texture. The sensory wall is a highlight of the space, providing a tactile area for children to explore. The contrasting textures draw attention to the feelings and encourage young movers to pull up or reach to touch the panels. Making sounds is an important process for children this age, as they have little capacity for communicating verbally. The teachers in yellow room always have instruments available to offer a different language of expression. The educators also put an emphasis on color to bring beauty to the space and engage children’s visual development.

The Green Room is for one- and two-year-olds. This space is designed with movement in mind. This age usually comes with gross motor development, so there are always opportunities to build, climb, and use hands. Building materials such as Magnatiles, blocks, and Duplos are always available. This is also a wonderful age to dive deeply into clay work, as this builds fine motor muscles and is fully open to budding creativity. These children need the opportunity to try things for themselves while always having a patient and loving teacher to encourage them to give it another go when they fall. There is always a cozy space available for big emotions and a new challenge for big exploration.

The two- and three-year-olds in the Orange Room are transitioning out of toddlerhood. Important work can happen at this age, as concretely as potty training to the intangible development of empathy. These children have words and motor skills and use these tools all the time! The Orange Room is designed to offer plenty of opportunities for imagination, creativity, and creation. The room offers an art studio with an always available painting easel, a space for dramatic play, and a building area. The materials invite endless possibilities.

The Blue Room students are three- to five-years-old. This is our oldest classroom in the school, and the children in this space are independent and capable. We try to focus the energy of this age group on diving deeply into the questions they have about the world. These children are incredible at wondering and then seeking answers. Many of the materials are designed to provide focused play in order to bring their ideas into fruition and build relationships with their peers. No classroom works as much with art materials, from paint to clay to collaging. These children excel at working with each other, so often many small clusters of play will form throughout this open space.

The studio is a key element of any Reggio Emilia inspired space. Our Studio Educator has worked to make this a space for more than just painting. Children have an opportunity to work in small groups exploring the ways they can process and create. The children may use any materials from yarn to pencils to make beautiful works or simply explore. A key difference between an art room and our studio is that the focus is not on the finished product but on the path taken. Often times children will leave without any piece, but they always gain a deeper appreciation for the materials they use.

Our chef works tirelessly to design and create meals that nourish the children while also presenting them with new flavors and textures. It is always a challenge to balance the new and the comfortable, but it is important work. Children may be invited to the kitchen to help prepare vegetables and invest some of their own time in creating something for the school.

The Breezeway offers a safe area for scooters, bikes, and push carts. The space is large enough to move around but offers a flat space to work at a table or on a blanket.

The playground is our largest space designed for gross motor movement. Children can play, climb, swing, and dig. The shaded sandbox is a priceless sensory experience. The parent-built climbing structure has different levels based on different climbing development. Our Naturalist has created a small garden plot for vegetables and a worm garden for digging.

The children absolutely adore our Nature Preserve. In addition to being a beautiful space that encourages outdoor play, our Naturalist has designed this space to be interactive and engaging. Children can dig, plant seeds, and swing in hammocks. They can climb to the top of the flower hill and jump off. Wearing boots, the children often stomp in water puddles after it rains. This space has truly changed our school, and the children have plenty of opportunities to explore it.