Forest Schools Australia by Family Day Care Cairns | Education

Forest Schools Australia by Family Day Care Cairns

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22.01.2022 Clay people at Forest School. The children investigated which bark was best for the clay to stick too and got stuck into creating!

21.01.2022 The wonderful thing about Forest Schools is that many of the skills that teachers try to teach children in the classroom occur naturally in the outdoor environments! Forest School provides opportunities for children to work and play spontaneously and requires a broad range of cognitive skills including counting, measurement, planning, problem solving an even sequencing. There is so much collaborating, communication, sharing, conflict resolution and lots of important social ...skills occurring in our forest schools practice. Nature provides opportunities for imagination, it inspires children to be creative and is a rich and essential part of children's physical development. Nature allows children to challenge themselves physically, supporting their development, coordination,strength, motor planning and physical competence. Nature provides opportunities to physically challenge, children's strength, coordination and competence and build deeper understandings around how their bodies work. Today we were joined by two new educators to our scheme and two ladies interested in forest school practices from Innisfail. The children enjoyed clay play, they turned containers into boats, rock painting, we went on a bear hunt and played hide and seek in the bush. We discovered tadpoles in a muddy puddle and had loads of wonder and fun. Photos of our morning are attached to this site in a photo album.

19.01.2022 We are looking for Educators in the Kuranda area. Please share this post. We are running an information evening this Thursday 18 April at 5pm in Kuranda.

17.01.2022 Today we have the pleasure of having both under schoolies and the schoolies here. What a great opportunity. We began the session by getting dressed and spraying etc., there was no mozzies at set up but just in case. Moving in to base camp we had our safety talk assisted by Emily and Seth today, two of the under schoolie Forest School kids who are experts in this now. Thank you to Emily and Seth for the actions and reminding us of the rules to protect ourselves. Moving on to ...Continue reading

16.01.2022 . Today we had school age friends with us as well, this is a great dynamic for us all. We began our session by putting on our safety vest, ensuring the clothing we are wearing is meeting our safety handbook standards and have we got sunscreen and repellent on? Yes, all agreed. We worked through the Safety Talk together demonstrating what to do if we see a snake and if a dog comes up to us, are we allowed outside of the flags and why not? All agreed to follow the rules. Rem...Continue reading

16.01.2022 Today was wonderful! What an amazing site this is for our Forest School. We are so grateful to have such a wonderful environment to play and learn in. We began our session by putting on our safety vest, ensuring the clothing we are wearing is meeting our safety handbook standards and have we got sunscreen and repellent on? Yes, all agreed. Emily and Eryn took us through the Safety Talk demonstrating what to do if we see a snake and if a dog comes up to us, are we allowed ou...tside of the flags and why not? All agreed to follow the rules. Remember when an adult calls 1,2,3 Come to Me, that means back to base camp mat. We were reminded us about the water level do not go out above the top of your boots. If you are that far out, you are too far and need to come back in more. Off we go to play and learn. Moving on we explored the trees and climbed the trunks, levered ourselves on the branches and noticed the shapes and curves of the vines. Today we talked about the vines that come down the tree and also noticed the tree roots that are exposed and how similar they look, just different sizes. There was a bridge over one area of water stretching from a trunk to trunk, this was very interesting. There were questions about who made it and when, we decided others had been here maybe on the weekend because we did not make it. Our swings were still in the tree from last time and we used these today, with the water level being lower again it was easy to get around to the swings and shallow for the under school age children. We had good fun hanging on and attempting to swing ourselves. We had a go at fishing today but there was nothing where we were trying, we moved around a bit but still nothing. We think the creek is too low for them even under the creek tree roots. The tea set was a great resource for morning tea being served, we found the water is so clear and fresh we could actually drink it. At the edge of the creek we also mixed, measured, poured, stirred, tipped, learnt about full and empty and half way and manipulated the water tools. Up on the bank we made paint brushes with materials found on the ground and also cut some grass with Lisa. These involved collecting suitable sticks and branches, cutting them up and then using tape to put the materials on the end of the sticks. Billie suggested making a broom, which evolved into a broomstick for a witch and flying around. We took them home to try out together with paint, looking forward to seeing the results. At pack up time we shared these out to take home. With Therese we modelled with clay. Therese showed us how to make a ball in the palms of our hands and use this to work with as a base and mixed together the different types of clay one grey and one reddish brown. Children used sticks and other nature items to decorate their modelling. See more

15.01.2022 NEXT SESSION FOR FOREST SCHOOL IS WEDNESDAY 20TH SEPTEMBER. PLEASE RSVP.

13.01.2022 We currently have some vacancies in Cairns North, Westcourt and South of Cairns.

13.01.2022 To extend our learning about natural environments we headed to the Cairns Aquarium today! What a great time we had! Prior to going in we were treated to touching some native Australian Lizards, a Blue Tongue and a Frill Neck. This was very exciting. Heading in we stayed in our group and explored the Cairns Aquarium, first up was the freshwater section where we observed the freshwater fish, turtles, eels and crabs. These live in mangroves and fresh water systems like the one a...t Goomboora Creek and Cattanna Wetlands. There was a lady in the tank cleaning it, she was dressed in wetsuit with weights to keep her down, goggles, snorkel and O2 pipe, a big sucker type vacuum was cleaning up the floor of the tank. The turtle tunnel is amazing and we were able to see them from all angles as they swam. The baby crocodiles were being fed too and there was a water snake to see. Further on we saw native reptiles that live in trees and natural habitats like giant cockroaches, lizards, frogs, insects of all kinds and they were so close to us. Moving on into the salt water sections we were treated to fish of all colours, sting rays, sharks, turtles, snakes, so many animals to see. It was really amazing through the glass tunnel as they were swimming over us and we looked up to see what they look like underneath. The stingray has a mouth under it’s body. We were able to touch starfish and other creatures in the touch tanks and went into the coral and fish maze and tunnel to explore the coral, small creatures and star fish of a reef system. The tanks are so tall and there are 2 tanks that are double story. The Hammer Head Shark and Grey Reef Shark came to the glass and glided by so many times. They were a huge hit! We learnt that the Hammer Head Shark has a snout that is like a hammer and that is where it’s name comes from. We would like to thank the families who came today and enjoyed the experience with us. Also to Corrine our adopted Grandma from AVEO Retirement Village for coming and being with us and supporting us in our safety today while we enjoyed the Cairns Aquarium.

13.01.2022 Great morning at the Greenslopes Adventure Playground in Cairns.

11.01.2022 We love to swing.

06.01.2022 Forest School today... Today was wonderful! What an amazing site this is for our Forest School. We are so grateful to have such a wonderful environment to play and learn in. We began our session by putting on our safety vest, ensuring the clothing we are wearing is meeting our safety handbook standards and have we got sunscreen and repellent on? Yes, all agreed. Felix took us through the Safety Talk demonstrating what to do if we see a snake and if a dog comes up to us, a...Continue reading

06.01.2022 This morning we ran a Forest School Session. Many children in the service have been camping with their families of late so we decided to extend the children's interest by doing some intentional teaching around fires. The children collected small sticks and dry leaves and helped us to light a fire. We used a flint fire starter and discussed the responsible ways of attending to a fire, the danger not only being the flame but also the smoke and the hot embers after the fire. ...The children enjoyed warm milo around a small camp fire today and the connection between home and friends produced some lovely sharing! We also took our safety talk another step further, doing a demonstration of what to do if bitten by a snake and explained why anyone bitten needs to stay still, not move around pumping the poison into their veins. Visual demonstrations and hands on learning are effective tools for educating children. We hope to never need to put this lesson into practise but the more knowledge the children have the better ! See more

03.01.2022 Fantastic article in the Jigsaw Magazine this Spring Edition. Thanks to Genny Frazer for writing the article.

01.01.2022 Forest School with FDC Cairns today and the children were looking forward to a morning in the sunshine beside the creek. The children collected sticks that they thought had a magical feel as we walked to meet up with the rest of the group. We conducted the safety talk and focussed today on encouraging the children to become more interactive and to contribute more. Forest School is a wonderful platform for so much discovery and learning and today we encouraged the childr...Continue reading

01.01.2022 Today was good, today was fun! Tomorrow is another one! We had a really lovely morning together. Starting the session of Forest School off with the safety talk at the base camp and roll call. To encourage children to answer their name Genny has a star stamp she puts on the kids hands who call out here or something similar at their name. We have new friends here today, Wendy has come to participate with Seth, Thala, Sarah and Zion. Welcome to Forest School. Learning the ru...Continue reading