Nicole Langdo has been a member and trustee of FoHVOS since 2018. She is the founder of Painted Oak Nature School, a progressive nature-based preschool located in the Hopewell Valley and New Jersey’s first forest kindergarten. She is passionate about maintaining the magic of childhood for young children and their families, which she believes inherently resides outdoors. Before hanging out her own shingle in the Garden State, Nicole was a teacher in both the public and private sectors for nearly two decades along the east coast and in the Rockies. She holds an undergraduate degree from Franklin & Marshall College and a Masters of Education from Lesley University.
Nicole was honored in 2017 with the Richard Rotter Award for Excellence in Environmental Education by the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association where she has been a member for several years, and was called an “Innovative Educator,” when interviewed by Steve Adubato of Caucus: New Jersey On The Air in 2016. Her school has also been featured in several local publications for its focus on getting children outside and connecting with nature.
Nicole is a lover of foxes, fires on cold winter nights, and walking among tall trees. She and her author/illustrator husband have been residents of the Hopewell Valley since 2013, where their two children go to school, and they enjoy rocking on the porch while the traffic just passes by.