Hummingbird Daycare is owned and operated by Gabe Slavin. She received a BS in Environmental Studies, an M. Ed. in Creative Arts and Learning, and an MA in Counseling Psychology. Gabe has also studied the Danish Folk School model, Appalachian mountain handy-crafts, folk music, storytelling and dance at the John C. Campbell Folk School and is trained in Authentic Movement, and Sandtray Therapy. Gabe has worked with children, adolescents and young adults as an educator, art instructor, counselor and child-care giver in a variety of settings which have included camps, a parent-run school, educational farm centers, public schools, mental health centers and privately in her home.

Combining her love of creativity, nature, experiential education, the arts, human development and homesteading skills, she has created an innovative and unique daycare program for young children.

Below is an article about the Hummingbird Program, written by Gabe and published in the Audubon Expedition Institute's Winter 2008 Journal. AEI is a field studies program through Lesley University where Gabe completed her undergraduate degree in Environmental Studies, and later taught as a member of the faculty.

Imaginative Play in the Outdoors: The Basic Ingredients for Ecological Citizenship

by Gabe Slavin

What exactly do six children under the age of five, pretending to fish in a stream using sticks for fishing poles, or collecting leaves and flowers to throw in a bucket of water that will soon become “fairy soup” or make believing they are piglets sloshing around in a patch of gooey mud have to do with Ecological Citizenship? Plenty. These are activities that children in my preschool program take part in daily, and to the mere outsider it seems like, well, just kids being kids. But I believe there is much more going on here than meets the eye. These activities are helping cultivate the basic building blocks of Ecological Citizenship. After all, if you are going to call yourself a citizen of a place, you have to first feel a connection. You have to feel like you belong. You have to feel at ease in it, and enjoy being in relationship with it. Only then, can you begin to be curious about it and want to understand it's complexities, and feel moved to protect and care for it.

I am very fortunate have over 40 acres of conservation land out my backyard to use as my classroom. Almost every school day, the children and I go on an adventure, exploring the stream and the meadows. We go out in all kinds of weather, armed with muck boots, sun screen, bug dope...and sometimes even chocolate (to help with that last trudge back to the house, up the big hill during the winter). The children have made up names for all the nooks and crannies that we frequent...there is Root Bridge, a small section of exposed roots that connects the bank of the creek to a little island. Then there is Fairy Island, a grassy haven where they love to curl up on towels and rest after dipping in the creek.. Juniper Ship is a large old Juniper tree that has just enough room for one child to climb up and look out at sea for pirates, using a make believe spotting scope. Sandy Cove is the best place to try and catch minnows, and Pine Hill is a really good place to hide and go unnoticed by other passer-byes.

There are places we go and things that we do that are dependent on the time of year. The children look forward to these special activities as we move from one season to the next. In the Winter we sled on the hills and skate on the pools of standing water, in the Fall we pick wild grapes and to make jam, in the Spring we look for Skunk Cabbages and tadpoles and in Summer we spend many a day a the creek swimming and trying to catch minnows and making mud burritos (knot weed leaves as invasive as they are, make excellent tortillas).

My curriculum isn't to heavy handed with teaching concepts like recycling, or why it is important to eat organic produce from the garden vs. driving to the supermarket and buying items from South America. They'll be plenty of time for these concepts later in life. For now, the children are learning to enjoy and anticipate the cycles and the systems of the Earth, and are being introduced to plants and creatures that they share this miraculous planet with. By exploring with their imaginations and their senses, and having a relationship with a place, they are falling in love with the Earth.

I often used to wonder at what it was that I had in common with the other AEI students and faculty that would attract us to living outdoors and running around the country on a school bus learning about the Earth, later seeking out jobs to create change on the planet's behalf. I remember discovering that the majority of us had experienced imaginative and exploratory play in the outdoors as children. Whether it was playing hide and seek in a tangle of scrubby bushes in a suburb of Chicago, feeding ducks in Central Park, or making a stick fort in the woods at a family summer camp, many of us had magical memories of these early years playing outdoors. I am convinced that these childhood experiences had a huge influence on the very core of our beings, and without them we may not have ended up becoming people who gave a rat's fanny about disappearing species, ozone depletion, melting glaciers, non-renewable resources or post consumer waste.

Giving young children the gift of falling in love with the Earth should not be underestimated. Whether you are an educator, a parent, an Auntie or Uncle or just plain anyone who has children in your life, taking them outside and letting them explore and helping them to feel comfortable, competent and excited about the Earth is a powerful act. It's pretty simple stuff- you don't even need a college degree or special training to do it! Learning to be in relationship with the earth as a child through play, is the first ingredient in becoming a grown up who takes their Ecological Citizenship to heart. Mud burrito anyone? You really should try them, they are quite delicious!