Reflections of our trial so far

So Far...

In reflection we have adapted and changed our trial as we go. The initial sessions we just brought the planning book along and then wrote down what the children wanted to explore and tried to do some of the activities they wanted. 

Our sessions run from 9.30 - 11.30/ 12.00. Initially we would have both Morning Tea and Lunch out at Cape Pallarenda but we were finding that it was taking too long to have morning tea and a bit waste of time that we were there. So last week I trialled it having Morning Tea back at service before we leave, this worked so well gave me much more time to discuss what we have been doing at the National Park and then act on those discussions. 

It was also very taxing being the lead educator for both sessions and I felt that the children that were not participating in the program were missing out on quality teacher time so we are now rotating it between myself as Kindergarten Teacher, Director and 2IC. This system seems to be working much better than myself going each time.

We have also changed and adapted our program based on the children's interests out at bush kinder. We are starting to bring some more equipment with us each week. Some of the children have been very interested in keeping both the bush and the beach quite pristine and have wanted to pick up rubbish so we have purchased some gardening gloves which they can do this with. 

We are also talking about sustainability consistently and how we can do this back at our service. At Cape Pallarenda there are many scrub turkeys and the children have been very interested in these animals and because they are in their natural habitat they wanted to be able to see some more animals hatch and so we have done a chicken hatching program in preschool which they have learnt many new things about the living world. 

They have also been interested in how plants and trees go so back at service we have planted seeds in individual pots as well as in our garden beds outside. 

Consultation and Planning

Parent consultation

After checking out possible sites I then worked on some special policies I would need in addition to the service's current policies. They included risk, snakes and first aid specifically at the nature kindergarten site. We then consulted our parent body for potential interest. Initially we had two groups of 10 on a Tuesday and Thursday planned to cater for the attendance of parents that were very interested in our service. Our parent meeting was reasonably well attended and the parents that did attend were very keen on our new program. So based on children and parent interest we decided to go ahead with the trial. I got together a pack for each parent which included all the appropriate policies and the nature kindergarten handbook as well as appropriate permission forms for parents. 

We then commenced our first Nature Kindergarten session at the end of July. We also created an A3 planning book where we had a title page that was educator created then all of the children put their hand prints in the next couple pages to represent the fact that this book was created by them. Across the course of the next 8 weeks which is the length of time we have been running the trial we have used this book with varying degrees of success sometimes it just records our planning for the session and sometimes it is used for reflection.  

Starting a Nature Kindergarten / Bush Kinder

The Beginning

In Term 3 this year as a service we went through the process of implementing a nature kindergarten program at our Long Day Care with a funded Kindergarten program. 

The motivation behind this program initially was teacher intent as as an educator I have always been motivated by environmental education. I did an elective at University and made a strong connection with the lecturer who specialised in environmental education for sustainability. I then had a break as a teacher in my career from the passion for environmental education but after re-entering the early childhood sector 18mths ago my passion for integrated sustainable education was renewed. I also hope that when I move back into the school sector that continues and avenues for creating sustainable education opportunities for children continues. 

To this end I investigated online opportunities for creating quality environmental experiences for preschool children and came across Claire Warden's work on Nature kindergartens in Scotland. Which then lead me to work done in Australia by Westgarth Kindergarten in Victoria on Bush Kinder as well some others that had mimicked their work. Then in July this year I went to a professional development session run by Nikki Buchan who has worked extensively with Claire Warden and is now bringing her message to Australia. In this day it was discussed as a early childhood service how to move from plastic fantastic to Nature Kindergartens. So after much reflection on how we could use this philosophy in our service, I spoke to my director to see if the parent interest was there in order to create a Bush Kinder program. 

So firstly I did some of the pre work on site choice and what would be appropriate for a nature kindergarten program in North Queensland. 

Below is some pictures of our initial trip out to our nature kindergarten site with my own boys.