Our “Virtual Nature School” Blog
Some of our staff have been participating in a training course over a recent 6 week period, a Virtual Nature School, run by the Living Classrooms Team and led by Dr. Claire Warden. Here are some snippets of the activities we have developed within our setting as part of our self-reflection from the course. Please keep an eye on this blog for further excerpts from our Virtual Nature School assessments.
Looking Up
“As we were focusing on clouds, we decided to do a sensory activity for the Little Ramblers group (2 year olds). We took the shaving foam outside to represent the clouds that we had spotted as we looked up (when we lay on the mats in our previous activity). We began our activity huddled around the wooden spool in our outdoor suits anticipating the shaving foam spraying from the canister. One child clapped their hands with excitement and the children wasted no time in enveloping their hands in the foam. The adult used descriptive words when talking to the children, repeating them frequently to encourage new language. They then began transporting the foam around the garden. Another child discovered a chalk board and used their hands to make swirly patterns on it with the foam, they repeated this action a few times running back and fore to collect more handfuls of foam. The same child then looked down at their hands and said ‘mess’ then pressed their hand onto the ground and looked up at the adult in delight when they realised their hand made a perfectly formed handprint, they then ran around making handprints on various other surfaces in the garden.”
Looking Down
“For this week’s area of exploration, ‘Looking Down’, the Little Adventurers (2-3 year olds) donned their outdoor suits, coats and wellington boots for a walk. Some found their own clothes independently and others found them with some prompting. The children are developing skills and independence for getting dressed themselves so we give the children varying degrees of support depending on what is required, as well as lots of encouragement. So once everyone was wrapped up and cosy (with bobban hats too!), we set off for a walk in our local community. There were some children asleep snug as a bug inside cosytoes in the double buggies and we had some very helpful children who volunteered to help “push” the prams. It was a day of interesting Scottish weather, with a mix of hailstone showers, rain showers and the sun shining so brightly in between fluffy white clouds and dark grey ominous looking ones. The ground was very wet so the wellies were a good choice! When asking the children to look down and gently prompting with a question, not all the children chose to voice their thoughts but they all looked down to the ground and listened intently, looking while we walked as well as stopping to look down. Some children made vocalisations and there were words such as ‘shadow’, ‘roads’, and ‘puddles’ mentioned by one child. ‘A big puddle!’ was exclaimed at the sight of one, and when asked what could be seen in the puddle?, a child answered ‘stones’. When asked what can you do in a puddle?, a child answered, ’splash in it’… and with only a very little amount of encouragement needed, the children did exactly that. Lots of jumping and splashing and big smiles too. When we returned back to nursery, one of the children very contentedly said, ‘that was a nice walk’.”
