Students Niko Zlatkovic and Mas McDaniel work on math problems in the outdoor setting at Cocoplum Nature School in Delray Beach. Photo provided
By Faran Fagen
Cocoplum Nature School students love to play pretend restaurant, make up theater productions and imagine themselves as magical creatures in enchanted forests.
“It really is remarkable how much progress the children make, academically and as a whole person, in a play-inspired and nature-based environment,” said Melanie Stefanovic, executive director of the Delray Beach school.
Cocoplum’s philosophy, according to the school website: Everything taught in traditional schools with textbooks and rote practice can be learned by children outdoors with natural materials through play, exploration and inquiry.
The three pillars of the curriculum are nature, place and play. The school, which serves kindergarten through the third grade, strives to make learning individualized, largely self-directed, experiential and social.
Founded in 2020, Cocoplum fosters critical thinking and creativity, not conformity, and cultivates collaboration and communication, not competition.
“The most incredible testimonies come from our students’ caregivers and parents,” said Stefanovic, whose own daughter is in her third year at Cocoplum. “They tell us that their children can’t wait to come to school each day. Many parents report that their child’s peacefulness and joy has rippled through their family.”
Stefanovic, who lives in Delray Beach with her husband, two young children and an old dog, co-founded the school with Fernanda Wolfson.
They met at the Delray Beach Children’s Garden when their oldest children were barely walking. Together, they dreamed up a nature school where their students could learn to read and write under the shade of a tree and learn math and science while playing in the garden.
“I was working on my PhD at the time — focused on a totally different topic — but all of my leisure reading and research for the next few years was about nature-based learning, forest schools, unschooling and play-based learning,” Stefanovic said.
The biggest challenge in starting Cocoplum was finding a space. The school was fortunate to be welcomed at Cason United Methodist Church on Swinton Avenue, where the shady space and charming classrooms were idyllic and right in the heart of the “Village by the Sea.”
The students come from as far south as Pompano Beach and Coral Springs, up to Lake Worth Beach.
During direct instruction in reading, writing and math, children learn in groups of three with their teacher. Overall student-to-teacher ratio is 9-to-1. Future plans are to expand up to the fifth grade.
The bigger dream beyond directly serving the school’s families, however, is to normalize this type of education.
“Right now, the norm is for children to sit indoors rather than play outside, hunch over screens rather than create and collaborate with peers, compete to be the best at everything rather than hone individual strengths and interests,” Stefanovic said.
One of the students’ favorite outdoor activities is a version of “playing house” in the tree and mud kitchens. They designate different branches of the tree as “rooms” where a few of them will climb and read or pretend to be resting. Below in the mud kitchen, others play at being the parents or the visiting doctor coming to check on the resting children in the branches.
The parents “cook” a healing “soup” made from herbs grown in the garden at school, and the doctor concocts a “potion” from various berries, sand, leaves and sometimes drops of paint or bits of sidewalk chalk.
Other children will join in the play as neighbors, building a new house from the loose blocks and boards in the playscape. They’ll engage in a discussion about keeping the construction noise down while the sick children rest.
“We witness the children leading their own learning,” Stefanovic said.
“There’s a natural drive to learn to read and write because they want to be able to create menus for their play restaurants. They ask to learn how to count money so that they can play bank or buy tickets to their friends’ puppet show or sell the watercolor paintings they created.”
Cocoplum facts
What: Grades K-3 at 342 N. Swinton Ave. in Cason UMC space, Delray Beach
Tuition: Listed at $15,900; accepts Florida’s Step Up for Students scholarships
Contact: 561-563-4679; info@cocoplumnatureschool.org
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