December 15, 2025
Important Dates…
Tuesday, December 16: Night Tree for Toddlers, 5:30 p.m. in the Gathering Place. Night Tree for Kindergarten, 6:30 p.m. in the Gathering Place.
Wednesday, December 17: Night Tree for South Side, 5:30 p.m. in the Gathering Place. Night Tree for North Side, 6:30 p.m. in the Gathering Place.
Thursday, December 18: Night Tree for 1st-3rd Grade, 5:30 p.m. in the Gathering Place. Night Tree for Overfield Alumni, 7:00 p.m. in the Gathering Place.
Friday, December 19: Last day before Winter Break. School CLOSED December 20-January 5th; school resumes Tuesday, January 6th.
Tuesday, January 6: School resumes after Winter Break.
Monday, January 12: Class Options materials published for the 2026-2027 school year.
Letters from Leadership
As you read in last week’s newsletter, we here at Overfield are committed to maintaining children’s connection to nature as part of a fundamental right of childhood. We believe that children have not only a need for time in nature, but also a right to time in nature; time spent in nature is essential to a healthy childhood. I have spent the majority of my career working in support of this in various capacities–in museums, park districts, as adjunct faculty for graduate students, and here in Overfield for 11 years as Naturalist and now 10 years in Leadership of our nature and arts based program. The focus of my master’s degree was on children’s emotional, aesthetic, and spiritual connections to nature. As Carla said last week, we believe that if we care about children, and we care about the earth, then we must prioritize children spending time in nature. Children will grow to be conservationists only if they care for nature, which comes from knowing nature, which comes from spending time in nature. I have found through my research that it matters less how much you know, and more how much you care, when looking at what determines pro-environmental behavior. One of the avenues to caring is learning more, as this knowledge can produce a sense of wonder and appreciation that takes root deep in the heart while it registers in the mind. But this can also take place just through playing in nature, as well as simply being in nature–and it doesn’t take a stunning landscape to elicit these feelings. It can as easily come from the wonder of seeing a perfectly symmetrical crystalline snowflake on the car door or noting the deep color of a backyard sunset or appreciating the song of the cardinal. It matters most that we have time in nature, and the disposition toward appreciation for the beauty and the miracle that can be seen in things both grand and mundane. And as Carla shared last week, this is a reciprocal relationship; being in nature is good for children, and children being in nature is good for the natural world. We will have healthier, happier children if we prioritize them spending time in the outdoors, and we will have a healthier planet, too.
This disposition toward wonder and appreciation of things in the natural world is not to be understated as part of the dynamic that drives both pro-environmental behavior, as well as part of a healthy emotional way of moving through the world in general. What we pay attention to grows. If we have our minds tuned toward wonder and our attention fixated on finding the positive, our mind and our emotions follow. How can we as adults help promote this with children? How can nature be a vehicle to move us to a sense of wonder, to a feeling of connection, and thus become a key part of our happiness as well as a motivator for future intellectual study and a way of supporting environmental stewardship? What if we as adults don’t feel equipped to help children because we don’t have much knowledge about nature ourselves?
Rachel Carson, noted environmentalist, gives us important guidance on this. She said in her book The Sense of Wonder: “I sincerely believe that for the child, and for the parent seeking to guide him, it is not half so important to know as to feel. If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow. The years of early childhood are the time to prepare the soil. Once the emotions have been aroused – a sense of the beautiful, the excitement of the new and unknown, a feeling of sympathy, pity, admiration or love – then we wish for knowledge about the object of our emotional response. Once found, it has lasting meaning. It is more important to pave the way for the child to want to know than to put him on a diet of facts he is not ready to assimilate.” So, simply, the first step is to just be there to support your child; give them time and space and freedom in nature. Carson also wisely tells us, “If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in.”
As we all gather together this week to celebrate Night Tree, we reinforce the importance of these tenets, for this tradition is rooted in these exact same premises. We come together at night, with the mystery of the dark all around us, the chill of the air producing smoky and tangible traces of our ephemeral breaths, the stars twinkling bright in the vast expanse of the velvety black sky, for precisely this reason: to rediscover and celebrate together the wonder and mystery of this world. To sing together. To feel together. To be joined in creating core memories for our children through this eliciting of wonder that the natural world is so capable of producing. As you prepare for time away from school and work during this winter and holiday season, I encourage everyone to remember this: it is less about the hustle and the bustle, the quantity of things and the mad dash that can sometimes accompany this season, than it is about the magic of simply being in a state of wonder–fully present–together. That is the real gift that both nature and childhood give to us, and that we can give back to both our children and our world.
Beth Poronsky – Program Lead
We hope all former Overfield students and families will join us for Alumni Night Tree on Thursday, December 18th at 7 pm. String treats, make art, sing songs, and hear Eve Bunting’s beautiful wintertime story once again. Bring a blanket and a flashlight, and wear warm clothes. Let us know you’re coming and find out who will be there on Facebook @overfieldalumni.
Night Tree Celebration, 12/16-12/18. We have been excitedly preparing for our annual winter celebration, Night Tree, which is based on the book of the same name by Eve Bunting–and it is finally here! The children have been researching our local animals and preparing food for them. They have created beautiful art and gathered natural materials to transform the Gathering Place into the forest depicted in the story. This week, families will enter into this space to sing and celebrate literature, nature, and the simple joy of being together. We can’t wait to celebrate this wonderful tradition with all of you in the Gathering Place this week at the class times detailed above in the Important Dates section!
Thank you so much to everyone who joined us in donating items to First Place Food Pantry! With your participation, we donated 312 pounds of food and personal care items! Many thanks for helping involve our children in the act of giving, and for helping those in our community.