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.
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