Member Spotlight

Little Leaf Nature Preschool

Little Leaf is a nature preschool enrolling children ages 2-5, with three locations in New York state. The program began in 2015 in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, on the grounds of a nursing home. At first, the preschool served 10 children and now serves 70 children across the three sites. The curriculum is emergent and play-based, inspired by the Reggio Emilia and Waldorf pedagogies. At Little Leaf, children spend most of the day outside - and many days do not even come in at all.

Natural Start spoke with Theresa McCaffrey, Founder, Co-director, and Head Teacher, to learn more.

You have several locations, including a preschool located on the grounds of a nursing home. Can you share how the program started, how it evolved, and a little bit about each of the sites?

We currently have three locations and in the spirit of place-based education, each setting influences the program in a different way. Our first location, Little Leaf at Andrus-on-Hudson, is located on the grounds of a nursing home. We rent classrooms on the ground floor that open up onto a beautiful enclosed garden. There are 25 acres and we roam around with the children all day. We even have a forest classroom that we call The Spruce Grove.

Because there was a great demand for our program, we branched out down the block to the Lenoir Nature Preserve where we have one class of 18 children. The preserve is a bit more “wild” than Andrus-on-Hudson and we rent the nature center as our indoor classroom. Up north in Ossining, we currently are in residence at Teatown Lake Reservation, which is a private nature preserve.

Can you share a special moment from your intergenerational program, where children spend time with the residents of the nursing home?

At Andrus-on-Hudson, we have a special addition to our program - the “grands.” The grands are the residents who live at Andrus-on-Hudson and are very special to the children. Children go upstairs to have lunch with the residents and do activities such as puzzling, painting, playdough, and nature bingo. One of my favorite intergenerational memories was when about 40 grands came downstairs to our garden for our end-of-year celebration. Everyone sat around in a circle and sang songs with us and our Little Leaf families. It was a very festive occasion!

We know the past few years have been challenging for preschool educators. How do your monthly teacher gatherings have helped your staff feel supported and inspired?

We have monthly staff meetings that are sometimes held on zoom and sometimes in person. We also have two staff parties a year which is a fun communal time for everyone. Any opportunity to come together and share ideas can be invigorating for the team.

This year, one of our topics was incorporating indigenous culture in our nature-based curriculum. When we come together in person, teachers from all the locations get to see each other. Everyone is filled with knowledge and ideas and it's a great coming together of minds.

Little Leaf is the first licensed Nature Preschool in New York–tell us about the process of getting your preschools licenced.

We were the first nature preschool in NY state to be licensed by the Office of Children and Family Services. Because we have indoor classrooms, the process was not too difficult. We have to do everything that daycares do like track training hours of the staff, process comprehensive background checks, and have monthly fire drills - but none of this has compromised our nature-based approach. It’s just a lot of work! We still spend most of our time outside and hike on a nature trail. The Department of Health did take a nature walk with us to be sure it was safe and once our licensor joined us as well, but nothing we did was a red flag for the state. Our licensors actually really like our program, love that we garden with the children, and are happy we spend time outside.