Captivating children by Anna Rutten from Kidiwise Early Learning Centre

'The future will belong to the nature-smart – those individuals, families, businesses, and political leaders who develop deeper understanding of the transformative power of the natural world and who balance the virtual with the real.” Richard Louv

Forest kindergartens started in Denmark in the 1950s and since then the initiative has spread throughout Scandinavia, Europe and now the USA.

Finally in Aotearoa we are seeing more and more early childhood centres providing this exciting learning opportunity for their children. Adventure activities are a natural part of children's play. Nature provides so many opportunities for learning.

The pedagogical approach to outdoor learning is as follows:-

• Children's need for knowledge, activities and togetherness is fulfilled by being in nature.
• Children learn how to be in nature and how to protect it. This is achieved by having fun together in the forest in all kinds of weather, all year round
• Children receive help in their development from things found in nature. They learn to crawl, jump, balance and climb up slopes, on fallen trees and mossy rocks. This is an ideal playground.

Learning through play and having fun takes place in many ways. In the forest there are ample opportunities for structured, teacher-led activities, including:

• Looking for alphabet shapes in nature
• Numeracy: for example, making patterns using leaves and twigs and counting
• A star-hunt for physical, numeracy and literacy activities
• Listening to stories (always nicer around a camp fire)
• Finding out how worms decompose leaves
• Songs, rhymes and circle time amongst nature
• Memory games using natural objects
• Tracking skills – looking for evidence of where animals have been on the ground, on the trees and vegetation
• Identifying birds and trees
• Mud slides
• Developing climbing skills
• Having a rope swing to develop motor and agility skills

A 1997 study by Grahn, Martensson, Lindblad, Nilsson, Ekman studied children's behavior and compared a traditional preschool to an outdoor learning school. The results are as follows:

• Children attending the outdoor learning school had higher attendance rate due to less sickness.
• Children from the outdoor learning school had better concentration which was verified statistically.
• The children from the outdoor learning school had better motor function.
• Climbing and playing on uneven ground has beneficial influences on children.
• Outdoor activities are especially important for children who do not fit into the traditional classroom.