Nature-based preschools are on the rise in the United States. Currently, they can be found in over 43 states in the United States and more nature-based education facilities are being added every year (Merrick, 2016; North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE), 2017). While there has been an increase in this type of early childhood program, it has yet to be determined if these programs are preparing children to the same degree as a more traditional preschool would. This study takes a mixed-methods approach to determine if children who attend a nature-based preschool are developing the skills needed to be successful in kindergarten, at a rate similar to children in traditional, high-quality preschool settings. While types of activities varied by preschool location, children at both locations developed early literacy, reasoning and some aspects of executive function at similar rates. Other aspects of executive function, including performance on the HTKS task (McClelland et al., 2014), were associated with greater growth for children in the traditional preschool classrooms.
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