Written by the Head of School, Morgan B. Scoville, M.Ed., on April 18, 2024.
Earth Day means a little bit more at The Fay School than at other schools, and we seek innovative ways to celebrate our natural world in the short term and long term. Fay’s Outdoor Education programming exposes your children to nature and creative play and inspires them to begin thinking about what it means to be environmentally responsible.
On Monday and through the end of next week, your children and Fay will all celebrate our Earth Day in myriad ways. We have partnered with Trees for Houston by offering each Fay Family the opportunity to take home and plant a sapling from the following species: sweetgum, red maple, bottlebrush, and bald cypress. This will take place during the morning drop-off on Monday. (See below for details.)
Later in the day, First Grade Leaders will perform their rendition of the musical “Big Beautiful Planet!” in our beautiful backyard. This musical celebrates our Earth—our home! They will sing, “It’s up to ME, it’s up to YOU. Help this planet Earth to stay ever GREEN, ever BLUE!”
At the end of the week, Third Grade Leaders will participate in Fay’s first-ever Campus Overnight where we will camp out in the Fay Forest, participate in a Night Hike that will be led by a naturalist from the Houston Arboretum & Nature Center, and then roast marshmallows for s’mores to conclude the evening at Ernie’s Place!
Fay’s Strategic Plan calls for The Fay School to “Redefine the Academic Experience by Excelling in Experiential & Outdoor Learning,” and we are clearly achieving this goal. So, I leave you with the following quotation that I discovered in a favorite book of mine as evidence of why this is important:
“Allowing freedom to make mistakes and structuring opportunities for success gives children a sense of power over their environment that fuels self-esteem, independence, and problem-solving. An outdoor experience ignites a world of learning and wonder for children that cannot be duplicated indoors.” - Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia and author of Let My People Go Surfing.