This story appears in the September 2025 issue of Utah Business. Subscribe.
Today’s children spend less time playing outdoors than any other previous generation. Recent surveys have found that nearly 40 percent of preschool-aged children play outdoors for less than one hour per weekday.
In response, an emerging trend in early childhood education in the United States is motivating Utah communities to utilize a new classroom: the outdoors.
When Salt Lake City resident Sarah Stone was completing her PhD in early childhood education, she was looking for preschool options for her own children. After reading the research on the benefits of European “forest schools,” she was convinced it was the ideal philosophy for educating young children. She soon discovered that there were no outdoors-based education programs in her community, so she decided to create her own.
After two years of running a backyard trial program, Stone had a waitlist of 64 children. In 2019, she officially launched Wonderbloom in Murray, the first state-licensed, nature-based preschool in Utah. The school includes two indoor classrooms, but its centerpiece is the expansive outdoor learning space.
While parents have expressed concern to Stone that the program won’t adequately prepare their child for kindergarten, Stone argues that this method of outdoor-based learning is more developmentally beneficial — and research backs up this claim. According to the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, incorporating physical activity and play for at least three hours a day can help three- to six-year-olds improve the cognitive functions of memory, executive function, processing speed, attention and academic performance.
During a tour, Stone points out areas like a garden, theater and the “messy café” mud kitchen, where children play and learn in what she has termed “guided exploration.”
“We set up intentional spaces for learning, then guide the kids by offering ideas or boundaries — so they’re not, you know, poking each other’s eyes out,” Stone says. “We’re set up as a developmentally appropriate preschool that’s play-based but with an outdoor, nature-based focus. We swap out being indoors for outdoors and things like plastic dice for acorns.”
The “imagineering area,” which is filled with hollow blocks, branches and bricks, transforms daily to anything from a bear forest to a fire station. As children build and pretend in the space, they also lift heavy materials, develop motor skills and collaborate with their peers.
Wonderbloom maintains an 8-to-1 student-teacher ratio, allowing educators to support each child’s development and to follow an emergent curriculum — a teaching method that encourages a customized experience for each student that evolves alongside the class’s curiosities. While the school aims to meet Utah’s kindergarten readiness benchmarks, it also gives students room to guide their own learning.
Of course, being outside also creates opportunities to learn about the natural world as students help tend garden plots, raise chickens and watch the seasons change. By combining child-led learning with daily immersion in nature, Wonderbloom nurtures not only academic readiness but also curiosity, confidence and a deep connection to the world around them.
Benefits of outdoor learning: Child’s Element transforms early childhood education
Sara Wild Jones grew up immersed in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, building forts, exploring with friends and learning from the land. That childhood now inspires her work as founder of Child’s Element, a solely outdoor, nature-based early childhood program launched in 2017.
With no brick-and-mortar location, Child’s Element meets in open spaces and public lands near the communities it serves. Groups gather under pavilions when it rains, but most days, students are learning among the trees and trails year-round.
Jones was inspired to create the program after becoming very aware of how much time children nowadays spend indoors on screens or being heavily supervised when playing. “Kids just aren’t really outside like they used to be,” she says.
The program serves around 150 students a year and emphasizes unstructured play, nature-based learning and emotional growth.
“We provide open-ended educational materials like story books, informational nature books and craft supplies,” Jones says. “We allow academic lessons to be incorporated naturally with numbers, counting and letter recognition.” They also encourage kids to play with exploration items like magnifying glasses, binoculars, buckets and baskets for collecting.
Jones adds that children also learn from the environment itself. “We learn about the land we’re on, what plants and trees are, and how to identify different leaves. We teach about how to care for nature,” she says.
While the program doesn’t have a structured curriculum, Jones emphasizes that their focus on social and emotional development is essential for kindergarten readiness.
Since enrolling in Child’s Element, parents have reported that their children have become calmer, sleep better, and have more regulated appetites and emotions. Many have also seen their children “become more adventurous, interested in nature, independent and confident.”
Jones believes that it’s paramount to facilitate a space where children can be in nature, use their imagination and learn about the world. “Instilling this connection and awareness in children at an early age means that when they grow up, they’ll be more inclined to turn to nature in times when rest and reflection are needed,” she says.