April 28, 2010

Nature Play

My sewing machine broke down, and it’s in the shop. So not much creative stuff happening at the moment. And my second shirt for the spring top week was so close to being finished! Oh well, will have to finish it later on.

I was listening to the radio and heard an interview with someone called Richard Louv. He was talking about how children living in western cities have lost the ability to interact with nature in an unstructured way. He has written a book called Last Child in the Woods on how we can help kids get back outside. I'm interested in finding a copy of it to read.

I feel as a society that we have become so disconnected from the natural world, it's so important for us to help children to spend time in it. It reminded me of a type of preschool I heard about in Europe called Forest kindergartens. The kids spend all day in the forest; building, exporing, playing in nature. Sounds like a dream preschool to me :).


(I find it interesting that so many of these preschools seem to be in Europe - when our climate makes it perfect for an outdoor life style. Aside from the hottest hours of the day in summer we have a great climate for an outdoor preschool)

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Sounds fantastic.
I wanted to point you in the direction of this blog http://mrsfriend.blogspot.com/ Zoey is crafty. She and her husband are both training as teachers, and they have an adorable 1 year old daughter. And, like you, she is a devoted Christian. I really like and admire her, and think you will too.

Erin said...

Thanks for the tip katie - I always love to find another Crafty-Teacher-Chrsitian-Aussie! :)