We were lucky to catch up with Chelsea Johnston recently and have shared our conversation below.
Chelsea, appreciate you joining us today. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?
I’ve been in early childhood education since before I graduates with my bachelors degree. I took a job in a preschool by chance and fell in love with working with young children. I didn’t discover my love for working in nature until far later. While working at a large childcare company, I had worked my way up to becoming the curriculum director and the owners approached me about the ideas of more natural playgrounds. I love learning so to help me with this challenge I signed up for a teacher retreat put on by the Eastern Region Association of Forest and Nature Schools, thinking I could find my inspiration from nature schools. On the retreat I found a new way of teaching. I began researching nature and forest schools while I was looking into master degrees and found David Sobel, who founded the Nature-based Early Childhood Education program at Antioch University. At this time I knew I wanted to start my own preschool. I had worked for large childcare, small childcare and preschool in an elementary school setting and I felt ready to do things my own way. And nature was going to be a huge part of that. In the elementary school setting I found that preschool was looked to as academically driven and children had very high expectations on them that stressed many children out. In the childcare settings, while some play-based still didn’t allow enough play time or enough outside time. The outside time in all of these setting that was permitted was on a very plastic playscape in a fenced in area, l=not allowing much exploration. My idea was to open a small nature-based preschool where the timing of non age appropriate academics or a fence would keep my students from exploring or following their own ideas. I wanted to allow children the space and freedom to be a child and to learn independence in a stress free environment. One of my biggest obstacles was licensing a space. I knew to open a program in CT I would have to abide by the CT childcare licensing regulations and finding a space with a good amount of safe land we could explore was tricky. I signed up for the masters program at Antioch which has taught me so much about starting this business and using an emergent curriculum in nature, but finding the right spot was on me. As I was working on course work for school, I often found myself outside studying wildlife and flora and it hit me… I am sitting on the perfect location to start this adventure. Not only that, but it would be the cheapest option to start. I immediately started the paperwork for a home childcare license and started mapping out in indoor classroom space and an outdoor classroom space with trails in the woods.
My husband helped me make a website and we made a Facebook page and started putting out communications, put ourselves out there in community events and held an open house.
I am now halfway through my first year of being open and I am loving it. I enrolled both older toddlers and preschool aged children, age groups I have always wanted to combine. They are not only learning about nature as we explore, they are becoming more independent, learning grit, empathy and leadership. I truly believe that all children should have an opportunity like this before entering elementary school. I don’t think that elementary school expectations should be pushed down. I hope what I am offering my students instills in them adventure and a love of learning.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Mu name is Chelsea Johnston and I am a nature-based early childhood educator. I actually went to school to become an art teacher originally. While finishing my bachelors degree I was offered a preschool teacher job from a friend’s parent that knew me. I grew up in a home based-childcare and am the oldest of four. So she thought the position with young children would be a great side job while working on my degree. Little did she know, she set my career path. I fell in love with working with young children. While I started working in a small childcare center, I soon moved on to a larger childcare with different locations around CT. I continued my studies in early childhood education after earning my bachelors degree by taking classes at the local community collage and signing up for any professional development opportunities I could. In the larger childcare company I moved up to become an assistant director of the school and then the Curriculum Director where I wrote the curriculum for the company and trained the teachers in play-based learning. It was in this position that I attended a nature-based teacher retreat and fell in love with nature based learning as a teaching philosophy. I started my small nature-based school this past fall from my home. The idea behind my school is to get children outside more often and learning in nature. We are driven by curiosity. This is not your normal preschool or home childcare. I offer enrollment exclusively to older toddlers and preschool age children who love the outdoors. This is a small program at the moment with only 6 spaces available for children. The school is open Monday-Friday from 8-4:30. I provide trail suits that children wear along with boots outside everyday on our adventures, rain or shine. There is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing. Which is why I provide these suits to keep the children dry and comfortable so we can explore outside everyday.
Owning my own preschool has been a dream of mine for a long time. Watching children find joy in nature has been the greatest gift this year. My students have grown in so many ways, from their independence in daily tasks like dressing for outside, their curiosity about animals, building and how things work, to their growing knowledge about the world around them, I am most proud of the progress we have made as a school community in helping others and showing kindness to our friends and nature.
We’d love to hear about you met your business partner.
My business partner is my husband. He and I both come from the early childhood world. We both have parents that had their own childcare businesses and grew up with small children around us. I met Brendan while working for a larger childcare company in CT. I was the curriculum director and he was the operations manager. I as going through a very difficult divorce and the home office of that company really took me under their wings and supported me in so many ways through that difficult time. Brendan was a single parent himself and helped me navigate the world of the working single parent and co-parenting. He always reminded me to take the high road, put your children first and be to be fair. Through that friendship, I found my best friend, my future husband and later on, my business partner to dream up a school that we would both want to call our own. Just before covid shut the world down, our career paths took a turn as our company changed hands and soon a Canadian company was running things. As our positions started to change, we both dreamed of something better. The idea of The Neighborhood has changed a couple times from the original thought, but when we landed on the idea of making it a Nature-based preschool, we knew we had to run with the idea.
While Brendan still has a full time job working in an HR admin role for another large childcare company, on the weekends and early mornings he is helping work on the business, by creating the website and systems to keep up with inquiries and new student leads. He helps prep snacks in the morning before we open and helps out with our sugar maple adventures in the winter. Someday our hope is to grow our school, hire more teachers, invite more students and both take a more hands on approach in the everyday happenings of the school.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
A lesson I had to learn or unlearn was not following a curriculum. Going into this adventure I knew I wanted to try an emergent curriculum. Unlike a curriculum that you write in advance based on themes, my hope was to base our adventures on the children’s interests and questions that arouse throughout the day. I take many observations of my students using pen and paper, pictures and videos and their work (buildings/structures they build, their play dough creations and their artwork). Through these observations I then have to look for common themes as well as identify where they are developmentally to continue challenging them and supporting their growth. So far this year we have studied insects and worms, squirrels and chipmunks, homes for animals, the effects the weather has on streams, and many other things. We have expanded our exploration perimeter outside as children become more curious and we explore further onto the property. There are many times where I have this teacher guilt because for the first time in 15 years, I am not following a curriculum set in stone. I do not have theme mapped our for late spring or a boxed curriculum ready to pull out on a rainy day. I have a group of curious children that lead my work. The key to to be just as curious about the children as they are about the world. That is what drives my passion and my curriculum this year, the children and their adventurous spirits. Unlearning the ways of premade curriculum has been the best thing for myself, my school and my students.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://neighborhoodelc.com/home
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheNeighborhoodELC