Reconnecting Children With Nature
| Kelly Salambasis
During May 2014 in our voluntary roles as part of the Bridge (East Greenwich) we celebrated National Children’s Day with an outdoor event in East Greenwich Pleasaunce. Children and adults were asked to swap “screen time” for “wild time” – so mobile phones were banned and all emphasis was on having a fantastic time in nature’s playground. All for FREE.
The Bridge is an oasis in East Greenwich – with a large secure play area, lots of grass, trees and its own forest school and it sits within several acres of park (East Greenwich Pleasaunce). Once there you can almost forget you are surrounded by traffic logged roads in all directions and children and adult’s alike really can enjoy all that nature has to offer.
On the day we had some fantastic activities taking place: Avant Gardening held ice cream workshops making ice cream from fruit and vegetables, The Nature Bug held a Worm Expo workshop all afternoon so under fives could learn all about the garden worm. Munchkin Athletics held sports sessions for children of all ages, The Bridge planted wild flower seeds around the borders of the park and we held forest school activities in the centre of the pleasaunce. A fun, healthy, natural and screen free fantastic time was had by all. There are so many ideas of how to reconnect with nature – I especially like this site:
https://projectwildthing.com/wildtime
It has loads of ideas for playing outside whether you live in the middle of a big city or in a rural village.
We worked hard with a local videographer Razia Naqvi-Jukes to put a competition entry together to show our commitment to nature and outdoors and were absolutely thrilled to win it – you can view the children having a fabulous time outside here.
At More2Childcare we spent nearly a year trying to find the right space for our first nursery. Top of our list was it had to have a dedicated outdoor space (and more than a tiny courtyard common in urban areas). It is crucial for us so the children can play outside and access forest school and gardening activities. Even children who grow up in a busy, congested town can benefit from the outdoors and nature.
What are your top ideas for reconnecting with nature with your children?
