Miyamaki Nursery School

A Creative Garden for Children

Miyamaki Nursery School has a philosophy; “the nursery school is a place to give children original experiences that nurture the fundamental principles of life.” We made this idea into a creative space in the school yard where children can learn about the living environment by letting them play in nature, such as running across the yard that has differences in elevation, touching mountains of soil and streams of water. In this yard, children can create new ideas and learn new things as they play in mud and have fun. If the school yard has too many concepts, it limits the creativity of children, so we let it be simple and leave some part of it as it is. A schoolyard with such a space is limitless and interesting. Whenever children want to create something, they can create it in the yard by using natural resources like mud, and then turn it into the next playground. A school yard like this place may be a new type of school garden, which allows children to create new things and change it as freely as clay.