Natural Connections for Learning

Last day of Bush Nest forever. What an amazing journey it’s been for the last 15 months. Wonderful families, enthusiastic, beautiful nature warriors and amazing staff! A great chapter of my life, blending early childhood and nature play!

At Bush Nest the children worked with clay and wire making sculptures to represent their ideas.

Today at Bush Nest we released a Monarch Butterfly. Each child had their own caterpillar and could watch the amazing transformation! A great experience! Nature is truely magic!

Today at Bush Nest the children were wild and free in their exploration and discoveries.

Today to celebrate Outdoor Classroom Day we were at Hills Christian School working with Reception - Yr 2 in their amazing nature play space. The space was buzzing with very engaged children in painting, clay work, potion making , hapa zome, wood whittling and making nature critters using nature glue. It was a fabulous day! Thanks to all the great staff for their participation as well as the creative and imaginative children.

This week at Bush Nest the beautiful spring weather inspired us to pack up our back packs, take some paints, bubbles, nets and the game of tic tac toe we made and head for the creek. The children were so engaged and relaxed in this environment.

Today the Bush Nesters were introduced to clay, and made seed bombs to scatter in their garden in the spring rains! It required persistence and lots of fine motor work to mould the clay into a pinch pot, fill it with seed and potting mix and then close it over and roll back into a ball.

After having a fire for the last few weeks the children at Bush Nest were eager to set and lit our fire for the morning. Such a great sense of mastery. Think about the literacy, numeracy and science involved in making a fire. Also a great opportunity for communication and social skills.

Clay and wire provide a great medium for creating stories. At the workshop today an educator created “The Lion and the Mouse” story. It provided a powerful way to tell the story.

A great clay and wire workshop at Elizabeth O’ Grady today. Thankyou everyone for your great creativity, questions and comments! Enthusiasm and confidence to offer these 2 mediums regularly for children to express their ideas and thoughts. It gives opportunities for rich language and so many possibilities.

To celebrate Science Week at Bush Nest the children engaged enthusiastically in making volcanoes and charcoal pencils in the fire.

Very engaged children in sensory play at Hamley Bridge Kindergarten today, deepening an understanding of the world around them.