When our children are around 4 years of age, we start thinking about getting ready for school. The problem is, we tend to think being ready for school means learning some literacy and numeracy. Believe it or not, that's the easy bit. Those concepts will be much easier to learn when all the other stuff … Continue reading Are They Ready For School? No, Ready for Life!
early childhood
Respectful Ways to Help Children
As parents, caregivers and mentors, our role is to provide support in a respectful manner, allowing children to tackle challenges on their own terms. For sure, it's often easier to do things ourselves, than to allow our enthusiastic, but unskilled, two-year-old to do it. But should we? When do we help, and when do we encourage persistence? What is the best way to help children? What's so bad about helping, anyway?
What do you do when it rains? (and other frequently asked questions)
What do you do when it rains? Where do you sleep? Do you see snakes? Here’s a list of questions we are most commonly asked about our programs. We set your mind at ease by answering them all here.
Position Available: Nature Mentor/Playworker
Position Available! Birdwings Forest School are hiring.
A healing story for children in the fire crisis
Children will need to talk about the bushfire too. They will need to explore this topic in every playful way in order to make sense of the experience and their emotions attached to it. At Birdwings we use oral storytelling, drama and art to help children process the experience. Storytelling easily crosses over and carries on through play, and formal storytelling can also provide children with a stage to share their understandings.
The importance of handcrafts for brain development
Just as it is impossible for us to work without immersion in nature, handcrafting is one of our cornerstone practices at Birdwings Nature. The process and the product of handcrafting and creativity are part of who we are and how we relate to our world. It is part of how we move through our seasonal shifts with the children and how we celebrate the gift of childhood.
Getting enough nature play?
We want our children to have a special, care-free childhood filled with special memories of family moments and playing with friends, just like our own was. We know it is a priority to make sure our children have free play time outside, but our lives as parents are so busy and childhood is increasingly scheduled, so that it is now difficult to ensure our children are getting enough nature play. Finding the balance between the pressures of modern living and our own values for freedom, creativity and play can be a real challenge families.