Irvine Nature Center

The Nature Preschool at Irvine is a child-centered approach to early childhood education with an emphasis on a balanced curriculum. It seeks to develop the “whole child” focusing on cognitive, physical, social, emotional and creative activities. Our nature-based curriculum benefits learners of all modalities through hands-on experiences both indoors and out. We believe that children have an innate curiousity to learn; to nurture new learning, we:

provide a supportive, safe learning environment to encourage discovery, question-asking and experimentation provide sensory experiences with live animals, natural objects, artifacts, trail activities and art materials for students to utilize all five senses develop cognitive growth and motor skills develop problem-solving skills through hands-on games and activitiesReading introduce language through songs, stories and dramatic play cultivate social skills and positive self-image through group play and cooperative learning across ages encourage family involvement to help students appreciate the wisdom of their first teachers – their parents/guardians appreciate diversity of living things and celebrate individuality of children and families.