Month: January 2018

Upcoming Camps, Workshops and Events

 

Austin Forest School Drop-in Open House and Playdate

Austin Forest Wonderschool warmly invites families with children 2.5-8 years old to our drop-in forest play day. Our forest school environment will be a special place to learn and explore the world!

We would love to have you come to play as long as works for you and your little one, and learn more about the program.

Click here to RSVP for forest school drop in 

Learning with nature / Special Time class at Toybrary

Explore and play in nature, in the garden of Toybrary! This is a parent-child event that will incorporate connected learning ideas. Bring your little one to play with complex and interesting materials, build and explore. Each class provides next steps to support you for more learning with nature on your own. Ages 1-3.

Friday mornings, 10:30-11:30, beginning Feb. 2, at Toybrary Austin

(event link coming soon)

 

Parenting from the Inside Out Book Group

Join me ONLINE for a life changing book group with the book Parenting from the Inside Out, by Daniel Siegel and Mary Hartzell. What I love about this book: it really effectively explores the ‘extent to which our childhood experiences impact the way we parent’: that phrasing is directly from the publisher’s description of the book. I also add that our childhood experience impacts most other aspects of ALL of our relationships. Drawing upon surprising and under-discussed findings in neurobiology, this book explains how interpersonal relationships directly impact our brain. In the group, we will use the book’s step-by-step approach as a guide. In the process, we will develop a comfort with our own life stories with the goal of helping us ‘raise compassionate and resilient children’. This group meets online for 4 Sunday afternoons, with the possibility of adding a 5th meeting. 

Sign up here

 

Spring Break Forest School Camp

Please join me for a forest school and cooking camp, March 14 Wednesday of Austin spring break.

For ages 4 and up.

Camp will last from 9-3, and will take place in the greenbelt (mostly) and at my home near the greenbelt. The day will include hiking each day, lots of making things, games, and of course some cooking.

$50

Sign up here:

SPRING BREAK CAMP!

 

 

Learning with Nature

“Nature, which excites all of the senses, remains the richest source of loose parts.”- Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods

Loose parts is a term that refers to the materials children use to build, invent and play. I love this photograph of my son, who is a born scientist, feeling sand run through his fingers. We had just arrived at the beach, and although he played a lot in Texas rivers and streams, this was his first time to feel beach sand. This material soon transformed from sensory experience to construction fodder.

There is a load of evidence that the material found in nature leads to more creative play, longer play sessions, problem solving and more complex language and thinking. And just being outside provides added support for this expansiveness.

Austin Forest School grew out of this research, and the research about need for children to move more, and to take risks in a structured environment. Claire Warden, of Auchlone Nature Kindergarten, one of my new favorite of mentors, talks about ‘pushing the boundaries of exploration’, and it says well what we do at Austin Forest School.