Two years ago I had a wonderful opportunity to teach at a school with access to a large forest, only steps from the classroom door. This rare opportunity was not ignored, as my awesome partner, Crystal Carbino, and I would include “forest time” as part of our weekly learning. Our time in the forest was a chance for independent, or group investigation and inquiry, while allowing their wonders to ignite a love for nature. The treasures that were found, and their hypotheses of what these treasures are, and how they came to be, helped push the inquiry process within our classroom.
Over the last year I have found myself drawn to the topic of Forest and Nature Schools. I think the spark began for me when I had a baby last June, as she is completely captivated and in awe with the outdoors. During her first two months of life, bringing her outside seemed to be the only trick to calm down our crying baby. My mind started to think back to our time in the forest as a class; we didn’t have problems with “behaviours”, we never had children crying or arguing, and we certainly didn’t have to leave a student back at school because they couldn’t follow the “forest time” safety rules. Why is that? How can nature calm children, and change behaviours that we see in the classroom and during recess? I have been on a personal investigation about how the outdoors/forests/nature can benefit children. An interesting blog post by Nature Play discussed children and the natural “urges” they feel within their daily life. These “urges” were defined as orientation, positioning, connection, trajectory, enclosure, transporting, enveloping, rotation, and transforming. Examples within these ten natural urges include the urge to hang upside down, climb and jump, break things, carry, drag and pull. The article discussed that many of these natural urges that children have can be seen as behaviours within the classroom. When we take the children outside of our classroom walls and provide them with the opportunity to safely “redirect” their urges, then they are no longer a “behaviour”.
Hmm. If using the natural environment provides the students a chance to self regulate their urges…why aren’t we all doing this?
I love that my School Board provides its educators an Outdoor Education Conference called Mittens in the Snow. These awesome sessions (chosen by the educator) allow us to get some direction for how to implement the outdoors in our program. My first workshop of the day was called ‘Tool Time’ by Thinkin Educational Services. The session focused on utilizing simple loose parts materials within nature, and the opportunity to investigate natural and made made tools. For my session we were given rocks and rope, and set free to play. Everyone used their materials differently; including tight walking ropes, bow and arrows, and catapults. What I enjoyed about Tool Time was that it allowed for individual inquiry, but also promoted group investigation, as my exploration time turned into team work when colleagues came over to assist me with my bow and arrow, while also helping me find materials to complete and test out the new tool. We were allotted time to discuss all of the uses we found for the loose parts; sharing ideas is a simple way to push inquiry within the classroom. The obvious cross curricular links available from this activity include: outdoor education, DPA, science, math, and oral language. Extending this activity to the classroom could include self documentation.
Activities such as ‘Tool Time’ are simple ways that educators can push the use of outdoor education, child lead learning, play-based learning, and inquiry. Utilizing nature and children’s interests are not only easier then table top science and math centres, but much more exciting. Not every child needs to participate in each of these activities to benefit from the learning – the group discussion/sharing circle allows for the children to see new ideas, and possibly try them out themselves.
Providing pictures of the activity the following day can also help to re-spark the interest as well.
How can we as educators provide quality outdoor experiences to our students? What is the difference between outdoor education and a Nature School program? Well, the Forest and Nature School in Canada 2014 Guide states:
Despite variations, all Forest and Nature School programs adhere to the following: regular and repeated access to the same natural space, as well as emergent, experiential, inquiry-based, play-based, and place-based learning (MacEachren, 2013). The defining feature of this type of nature-based education program is that children are provided with opportunities to build an on-going relationship with the land, to a dedicated educator, to one another, and to themselves through this educational approach.
I have to wonder what it would be like for children to have the opportunity to consistently play, interact, and watch a natural space for a prolonged period of time. Our Kindergarten Program on page 34 talks about a ‘nature deficit’ within children’s lives, and specifically discusses how the outdoors are to be a part of every Kindergarten Program’s day.
In the Kindergarten program, learning in the outdoors is included as part of the instructional day, and the educators play an active role, engaging with children in an inquiry stance as they play, explore, and learn together outside the classroom
If we know the benefits of bringing children to nature, then why isn’t the push there to follow through? So much money is spent on technology, materials, sports equipment, and yet our natural environment is free. Not every school has access to a forest directly beside them, but partnering with local environmental centres (such as our Tiffin Conservation Centre, where our Outdoor Conference was held) as part of a bi-weekly program, would be money well spent. In the mean time, providing your students access to outdoor educational time is so important. I am going to put together a list of different outdoor activities, such as the one shared above from Thinkin Ed from our session. If you have any great activities that you think should be included, email me at kkiernan.mrs@gmail.com
My search for finding a way to embed Forest and Nature School into the Kindergarten Program will continue …
worldofwonderskindie.wordpress.com 