Thanks to a collaborative partnership between the Elma School District, Summit Pacific Medical Center, Blue Zones Activate Grays Harbor County and other key partners, essential school readiness skills are easily available for Grays Harbor youth to learn along the innovative curriculum-based Summit Discovery Trail located at Summit Pacific Medical Center in Elma. The one-mile trail opened in September 2024 and runs north to south along the west end of the medical center. The immersive learning experience will enhance your child’s academic skills as well as promote physical health and well-being.
“We built this trail for families we know are not accessing early learning services,” says Christopher Nesmith, superintendent of the Elma School District. “We knew we needed to create an intervention to support families who didn’t have resources and access.”
Pre-Kindergarten Learning Support in Grays Harbor
Imagine being able to easily access essential learning skills activities for your pre-K little ones? Better yet, imagine feeling so inspired watching your child engage with learning while getting fresh air outdoors that you send them to kindergarten up to speed with their need-to-know essential skills for optimum success in school.
Among the many reasons for building the trail, having kids ready to start kindergarten with essential school readiness skills in tow is at the top of the list. “About 60% of our student body population do not receive early learning services,” shares Nesmith. “If you are starting behind the start line, you are not really reaching the finish line by the end of kindergarten. Now first grade has to start behind the starting line—so it kind of reverberates across the K-12 experience. We felt like this is a creative solution for families who can’t afford or access early learning services because they can just walk along the trail and collect some of those skills organically just as families spending time with each other.”
The trail features 14 learning stations that correspond essential skills to key curriculum goals. You can visit the trail multiple times and learn more each time you go. Your child will learn about the alphabet, animals, colors, counting and sight words. Sight words are commonly used words that children see in books and are encouraged to recognize and read by “sight” after learning the letters and letter sounds in the words. This is important for our early readers. Education about our surroundings such as the six or seven most common birds in eastern Grays Harbor County and the Salmon life cycle are among other wonderful learning opportunities. Learning about Recycling, reusing, and garbage are on the menu too. There is also a learning station focused on pollination with a raised garden.
“We created the QR code that is on all the pieces of equipment and trailhead signs,” says Chris Frye, executive director of Blue Zones Activate Grays Harbor County. Blue Zone Activate also served as project managers to help with the design and implementation of building the 14 learning stations on the existing trail. “You only have to scan it once and then suddenly each station has extra educational and/or activities. So, theoretically, you could go to that trail nine or ten times and have nine or ten different and unique experiences.”
Those unique experiences are varied and intriguing. For example, one of the learning stations focuses on books and reading. If you scan the QR code, you will find a list of 25 of the most popular children’s books broken down by ages with four or five books per group. Frye explains that coming soon there will be an option to check the books you see through the QR code out at the Elma Timberland Library.
“We have one station that is for anxious kids or for kids that might be stressed,” shares Frye. “It is an area to sit and just relax and be quiet. You can scan the QR code and there are presenters that speak about meditations for children or different breathing techniques.”
Another station is all about jumping. There is a 10-foot-high bar with inches labeled on it. Kids can run and see how high they can jump. “It (station) also has a long jump,” adds Frye. “So, you can run and see how far you can jump. And then when you scan that QR code, it will talk about and show a clip from YouTube about a gold medal winner from the recent Olympics or a female high jumper—so we try to maybe introduce kids into sports or activities they wouldn’t be aware of in a regular classroom.”
A music station opens up a world of musical genres and styles from classical orchestra to historically African American, Hispanic, and more. An area about six or seven feet off the trail provides a space to view bird life. “You can watch the birds and listen to the QR code information to learn about birds and hear how the birds whistle or chirp,” shares Frye. “You expand your learning and knowledge each time you go.”
