🌺The Curriculum Beneath Our Feet

Morning light spills across the garden, catching the curve of tiny hands pressing seeds into soil. The children lean close, breathing in the scent of earth. They talk softly to their plants, sprinkle water with small care, and then—almost always—look up at a teacher to make sure it was enough.

It always is.

At Ka Hana Pono, we say that the ground itself is our first teacher. The soil reminds us of what every human nervous system already knows: growth happens beneath the surface. It’s slow. It’s unseen. It requires warmth, rhythm, and the safety to rest in darkness until we’re ready to rise.

🌿Learning That Begins With Touch

Long before children can spell observation, they practice it.

They notice the difference between damp and dry, the way a worm curls when sunlight finds it, the sound of papaya leaves rustling when the wind turns.

Each sensory moment is an education in presence — in staying inside the moment long enough to feel it. This is Pā‘ani me Aloha — play with love — the foundation of our philosophy and our daily practice.

When a child’s bare feet meet the ground, the body begins to regulate. Their attention, their curiosity, their breath — all return to harmony with the world around them. The science of early childhood calls this sensory integration.

We call it pono — right relationship between self, land, and life.

🌿 The Nervous System of a Garden

Tending plants mirrors the emotional work we do with children.

You cannot rush a seed. You cannot force it to bloom before its time.

Developmentally, our little ones are learning how to hold tension — between excitement and patience, independence and belonging, doing and being.

When we give them earth to tend, we give them a space to practice this balance with their whole bodies. Every time they water, wait, and return, they are rehearsing trust — the felt sense that care given will become growth in time.

In Ka Hana Pono’s systemic view of child development, this is both education and healing.

The garden teaches co-regulation: soil and child breathing together, one nervous system to another.

🌸 The Harvest of Joy

And then, there are the days of harvest — when the children pull purple ʻuala from the ground, eyes wide, laughter spilling out before words.

This is where learning becomes embodied knowing.

They don’t just understand where food comes from.

They understand that their effort matters. That what they tend with love, grows.

That nourishment — emotional or physical — begins with relationship.

This is how we teach science, empathy, and spirit all at once: not through worksheets or lectures, but through belonging.

🌸 A Practice for Families

Today, spend five minutes outdoors with your child.

Touch the soil. Smell a leaf. Notice something small and alive.

Instead of teaching, listen.

Let your child lead the observation. Ask,

“What do you think the earth is saying today?”

In that moment, you’ll be learning together — not just about nature, but about presence itself.

Written with aloha by

🌿 Angelica Paulo Friedmann, LMFT, GRS — Director, Ka Hana Pono Preschool (Hale‘iwa)

Photography by the Ka Hana Pono ʻOhana.

In honor of all the small teachers who remind us that learning begins in love.