Nurtured Nest

In a world that moves quickly, Forest School offers children something increasingly rare. It offers them time. Time to wonder, climb, build, observe, imagine, and simply be.

Out in nature, children learn far more than the names of plants and insects. They develop resilience when a structure falls and they try again. They learn risk assessment when balancing on a log. They practise collaboration as they build shelters, solve problems, and navigate the landscape together.

Nature invites children to use all of their senses. It nurtures curiosity, confidence, creativity, and a deep respect for the living world.

At Nurtured Nest, we believe some of the most meaningful learning happens when children are free to explore outdoors.

Today the children explored fabric collage using recycled materials.
Bowls of scrap fabrics invited them to slow down and look closely. From choosing colours, feeling textures, cutting shapes, to layering pieces onto their cardboard eggs.

Some worked carefully with scissors, others experimented with patterns and placement. Piece by piece, their ideas began to take shape.

Sometimes the most meaningful learning begins with the simplest materials.

World Water Day at Lower Peirce Reservoir

With the reservoir right in front of us, the children began to explore an important question.
How does rainwater become the water we use every day?

They learned that rainwater is collected in reservoirs and goes through a process of cleaning before reaching our taps. To better understand this, the children built their own filtration systems using materials such as cotton, sand, gravel, charcoal and rocks.

As they poured dirty water through their filters, they observed how it changed — becoming clearer, but not completely clean. This led them to experiment further, adjusting their designs, rearranging materials, and testing different combinations.
Through this process, the children worked together, shared ideas, and discovered what made a filter more effective.

More importantly, they began to understand the effort it takes to clean water.
This led to meaningful conversations about why we should care for our environment including keeping our drains free from litter, as rainwater flows from drains into our reservoirs.

World Water Day at Nurtured Nest!

How do children come to understand something as essential as water?
Not through worksheets, but through experience.

This week, the children explored water in many ways.
They poured, filtered, observed and questioned.
They followed where water flows, explored how rain forms, and saw how water supports life, in the forest, in the classroom, and through stories.

They worked to free marine animals from plastic, explored how water moves through materials, and learned to return water back to the earth by caring for plants.

Through these experiences, the children began to understand that water is not just something we use, but something we depend on, care for, and share with the world around us.

Because children cannot care for what they do not know.

Things children learn in the forest that classrooms cannot teach.

How to move their bodies across uneven ground.
How to balance on rocks and test where to place the next step.
How to look closely into water and notice the small life within it.
How to hold a snail, and return it back to where it belongs.
How to climb a tree and discover what their bodies are capable of.
How to lie quietly on the grass and simply take rest in nature.

In the forest, children develop awareness of their bodies, of other living things, and of the environment they are part of.
From that awareness grows something deeper:
respect, responsibility and care for the natural world.

This week our Kindergarteners revisited the alphabet from A to Z while strengthening their early writing skills. Using the three-line guide, they practised placing their letters correctly and learnt to leave one finger spacing between words.

We then turned learning into a game, the children had to find and point to words as they were called out. This strengthens their listening skills, phonics awareness and word recognition.

Our older learners took it a step further by beginning to form their own sentences.

Who is in your family?
Today the children were invited to explore this question through play. A basket of dolls and a small frame became a way for them to represent the people who make up their world.

One by one, they carefully selected the dolls that looked like the people they love most, mummy, daddy, baby, grandma, siblings.

As they placed each figure into the frame, little voices shared big stories about the people who care for them.

Through simple materials and open-ended play, the children were able to express their understanding of relationships, identity and connection.