Reflections of last week using 'Threads of thinking' by Cathy Nutbrown

The outdoors enables children to develop their own ideas and questions.  Subjects are not divided and children will jump from scientific theories, mathematical language to flights of imagination all in the same session.  These questions develop over time, in an ever changing landscape.  During the Mini Rangers sessions we may be in the same place at the same time every week, but the environment constantly has new surprises for us.  

It is really important to allow children to grow and learn giving them opportunities to have unrestricted play outdoors.  At Mini Rangers we have created appropriate risks and challenges for the children, this gives them opportunities to become more aware of themselves and better equipped to learn about assessing risks, putting them on the right track to be able to to live and play independently.  

'In addition to sensory experience, talk is as vital to human life as pure air.'(Brierley 1994, p28)

At Mini Rangers the interactions with the different volunteers and adults create a lively bubbly environment.  From the acknowledgement of your arrival to the interested adults walking around.  The talk around the camp fire, the stories and snack time all offer up times where individuals are valued and recognised.  These adults notice and value the children's play.  For example Last Wednesday it rained so much that we only had Gabrielle and Millie to entertain.  They both enjoy filling containers as I have observed on previous occasions, so I positioned sauce pans on the outskirts of the shelters.  The girls soon got busy moving the containers to different parts of the bench so that they could catch more drips or stir what they had caught.  They also started to become innovative by turning an umbrella upside down and using it to catch more rain in order to fill up their saucepans. The adults around quietly observed, but congratulated the girls on their clever way of collecting rain.

This experience is different to anything you can offer when surrounded by home comforts.  The truth is as adults we would rather be indoors on a rainy day.  The discomfort of being wet or cold presents a risk to us.  The idea of getting dirty and ill becomes a risk.  Children pick up on this and enjoy staying in and exploring the opportunities inside instead.  Is this such a bad thing, well it depends, when you consider the opportunities missed, the independence that these girls showed, the innovation of their water collecting ideas and probably more besides relating to size of pan, how water behaves etc.  More than this though it has shown how an environment that they are comfortable with can completely change.

Here the boys are digging on a dry day and again we can see that they have formed an interest and together they are exploring the changes they can make to the area.

Cathy Nutbrown talks about the consistency in children's behaviour which as she says is at odds with some notions that adults have that children are inconsistent, spasmodic and idiosyncratic in their approaches to life and learning.  She espouses the constants are

- adults and their behaviour
- routines and information
- experiences and materials

Mini Rangers uses these constants to provide an environment for exploration.  If you found that your child/children always head for the same challenge at mini rangers this is no bad thing.  When you announce your plan to go to Mini Rangers your child is probably planning their own ideas for exploration on arrival, which means that when you have been a few times and your child realises the routines are just the same, the same adults are there and all the challenges are in place they will head off with their own ideas in mind.

As the adult in our children's lives it is important to be consistent and to show them your support in the activities that they choose

This is a  photograph of a dad focussing on his child's play.  Other children are particularly drawn into their play.  This particular play is led by the child's interest.  These first steps into discovery are more important for the child than any other as they are with someone that understands the ways in which they think, and understands their needs.

Mini Rangers has a routine that is set to incorporate the initial burst of energy children feel at the realisation they can now start putting all their plans and their ideas into practice.  Half way through the session we feel that they have had exploratory time and some children by now are flagging or just looking for a little something else, so snack time.  We have put a little story in, this is to allow children to experience a little adult led activity.  This is a short time and has always been enthusiastically received by the children.

We follow this with snack time and then the session has ended.

Mini Rangers was designed so that the children would be able to access the constants such as the mountaineering up the bank, the mud kitchen, den building, the stepping logs, the campfire and the bug hotel.  We then occasionally add activities that challenge other areas of their thinking.  Some children are really open to additional activities whilst others are still exploring the constant challenges.  I have found that sensory activities such as mixing the duck food and painting with shaving foam have been extremely popular activities.

I really feel that these activities have been tackled by the children because they feel safe with their adults and their routine.

At Mini Rangers we put out other activities for the children they are only offered.  It is important to stress that if children feel confident to try these it is only because of where they are on their journey and not a sign of future successes or failures.  Professionals create starting points, but we must be bold and relinquish control over what the children do.  I appreciate the difficulties of this and recently had an ofsted visit where I was desperately trying to show off in many aspects.  The child I was looking after was having none of my desperate need to be validated and ignored all my further attempts to implement literacy, maths, science!  She carried on with her own far more interesting areas of exploration.  That is how it should be, as adults we need to recognise our own needs and let the children's interest develop.  Our role is to support, challenge and suggest.

Okay I will come back to this topic, but I am taking break now!