TERRIFIC TREE TRUNK TRAINING
First Group On Level 3 Forest School
MINDSTRETCHERS BOYS WILL BE BOYS TRAINING
Leigh McKay from Holytown nursery class attended the conference about nurturing boys. Leigh says:
This was a wonderful oppotunity to learn how best we can suppport boys in the early years and has also raised my awareness of global citizenship.The course outlined the research that Mindstretchers carried out in Liverpool with pre-school age childen. It was shown that by changing the environment, resources and risk taking opportunities, boys health,and welbeing, motivation and engagement in their own learning was improved.
Global Citizenship programmes exist in order to meet the challenges of the modern world:` it is necessary for children and young people to acquire the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes to adapt and thrive.’ Learning in outdoor environments with natural resources allows children to learn life skills.This helps them make connection to real life contexts. ` Global citizenship encourages chilren and young people to develop and articulate their own informed world view and become active citizens as well as creative critical thinkers’.
During he afternoon of the Mindstretchers course there was a avriety of inspiring resources and activities indoors and outdoors using a range of approaches that provided opportunities for childen to explore real life and make sense of their world. They were given opportunities to think creativelly and responsibly. The Mindstretchers approach to teaching, learning and in particular learning outdoors promotes the principles of Global Citizenship, particularly for boys!
St Aidens Boulders and Tree Trunks
St. Aidan’s Primary Nursery Class
Our Nursery recently received boulders and a tree trunk from Mindstretchers.
The children were fully involved in completing the risk assessments and could tell us that the boulders would be slippery when it was raining.
The boulders and log have provided endless hours of fun for our nursery children. Their imaginations have really been captured and some children think our log looks as if it has arms and legs! Some children think it looks a little bit like a spider!
They have really enhanced our outdoor area, and with the ever changing, unpredictable weather recently, they have provided lots of points of discussion about how weather affects their appearance and use.
St Brendan s Second visit to Barons haugh
Suzanne Cochrane, St Brendan’s Primary School Nursery Class
Both myself and the children are looking forward to the upcoming visit. The children talk about and recall events from the first visit and often ask when/ what day we are returning.
¬¬¬For this visit I had responsively planned to follow the children’s interests from visit one. I wanted to continue using the twigs and sticks (which all children previously took a great interest in). I had planned for the children to use the sticks and twigs to build houses (possibly for the 3 little pigs) and dens to hide in. Unfortunately this had to be changed at the last minute due to the very heavy snow the night before the visit (which completely covered the ground). Instead I gave each child their very own map of Barons Haugh and we simply followed the trail on a walk around the nature reserve. During a discussion before we left the nursery we planned our route, deciding on which points we wanted to visit. We chose to visit the tree nursery and two of the hides. The children all enjoyed spotting various different kinds of ducks from the hides. During the last 10 minutes of the walk back to the bus some of the children began to get tired and complained that they were cold. This quickly ended when we raced up the hill and back to the bus in an attempt to heat us all up. Overall the children did enjoy the experience and loved having their own map to follow around the nature reserve. On future walks I will ensure that I provide the children with binoculars for bird spotting and digital cameras so they can photograph and record their findings.
Number of children who took part in this visit: ¬¬¬8 children
Number of additional staff members who got involved in planning and delivery of this outdoor visit: 1 student and 2 parent helpers
Did you involve anyone from out with the school in planning or delivering this visit? If so, who? 2 parent helpers
I have thoroughly enjoyed taking part in the teaching in nature project and fully intend to continue to use this knowledge in the future. I now feel highly confident in being responsible for groups of children in this type of outdoor setting. As a team we have agreed to take all children together next term allowing every child to benefit from this valuable experience. We are lucky in the fact that we have an entrance to Barons Haugh walking distance from the nursery and therefore travel will not be an issue.
SAFE SAND
This is the information from Grounds for Learning on safe sand play.
Health and Safety Executive Statement on Play
The Health and Safety Executive released this high level statement on the balance between play and risk in 2012.
This will give practitioners some reassurance about our responsibility to offer children challenging experiences which engage them in assessing and managing risk and keeping themselves and others safe.
We will soon publish our own North Lanarkshire Risk BENEFIT Assessments on our intranet- First Class . The revised Risk Benefit Assessments will clearly state the benefits of activities as well as the potential hazards and control measures.
Forest School Training
This is the presentation given at the recent information evening about Level 3 Forest School Training. Our proposal in future is that we continue to offer 3 day Forest Kindergarten training and possibly a 1 day Forest Kindergarten Taster session. All the places available on the Level 3 Forest School training have been allocated.
Useful information coming up to outings
SAFER OUTINGS TIPSpdfThis article explains what can go wrong when an outing is not effectivelly planned. This is a useful reminder of steps to take when planning outings.
Outdoor First Aid Training
Well Done all who successfully completed the course!
