The goal of the N.E.S.T. environment is to cultivate a child’s own natural desire to learn.  We do this by encouraging children to experience choice and decision making, which empower them with intrinsic motivation and self-discipline and strengthen their ability to think and act for themselves.  We guide each child to “do it by myself”, thus fulfilling the child’s basic need for independence.  Additionally, by helping children believe that they are capable, competent and confident, we help create positive attitudes toward learning that last a lifetime.

In the N.E.S.T. environment, the child develops feelings of support, security, and self-esteem.  Children are guided toward appropriate behaviors through a nurturing atmosphere that offers consistency; children come to understand the balance between freedom and limits.  Most children quickly adjust to the environment.  Nature assists by offering the child an insatiable curiosity and a boundless enthusiasm for activity.  Out of this newly discovered freedom of movement, there eventually comes a flourishing of concentration on an enticing activity.  Patience, self-control, and respect of peers emerge as children participate in community life.  The focus is both on curriculum and materials and on helping the child respond to the rapid changes of this developmental age.  The children will engage in hands-on activities (practical life), art and music, beginning literacy, math concepts, exploration and science, culture, and physical development.