Brazil’s Instituto Alana Releases Children and Nature Project to Reconnect Kids with the Natural Environment | Children & Nature Network

Brazil’s Instituto Alana Releases Children and Nature Project to Reconnect Kids with the Natural Environment | Children & Nature Network

http://criancaenatureza.org.br/

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“The reconnecting of children with nature is still a diffuse and unstructured debate. We want to communicate society the importance and positive impacts that direct experience and contact of children with nature brings, explains Lais Fleury, director of the Project Children and Nature. Today there is scientific evidence that prove these benefits. For Lais it’s important to highlight the admiration for the natural universe, expressed in their dreams, drawings, and love for animals. The liberty that the outdoor environment offers satisfies the genuine desire that a child has to run, jump and get dirty, creating possibilities of experimentation with nature and giving incentive to his/her creativity and imagination through contact with the natural elements."

Learning for Life: Creating quiet spaces.

Learning for Life: Creating quiet spaces.

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It is really lovely to read a piece where an experienced educator observes the purpose and effect that quiet areas have within a playground. The idea that all children want to engage in active activity all the time is often touted by to me by people who haven't actually spent time with children and are unaware of childrens developmental needs.

Image is the property of Kierna Corr

" In a noisy and busy playground I think it is very important to provide areas within the space where children can retreat to when they need to be quieter or more reflective. Sometimes the children will create their own spaces within areas too - we have a pallet den at the back of the slide and some days it is used as space to just sit and read books whilst on other days it is a busy hub of climbing children. Our willow dens have really bloomed in the last few dry weeks and the children are enjoying going into them to have conversations and be away from the business of the wider playground. It is lovely to hear snatches of conversation from within them or singing etc. as two or three children gather inside them.

Nature-Play-Learning-Places_storefront_preview_0.pdf

Nature-Play-Learning-Places_storefront_preview_0.pdf

The full article can be read through the hyperlink above

"Children must spend more time outdoors—for
their good health and the health of our planet. If
children don’t move enough, their bodies will not
develop in a healthy manner. If children don’t grow up engaged with nature, chances are they will never understand human dependency on the natural world.  Nature play is defined as a learning process, engaging children in working together to develop physical skills, to exercise their imaginations, to stimulate poetic expression, to begin to understand the workings of the world around them."

Royal Park's Nature Play named nation's best playground by landscape architects

Royal Park's Nature Play named nation's best playground by landscape architects

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"A Melbourne children's playground designed to encourage risk-taking - through rocky outcropped terraces and lofty climbing ropes - has been crowned the nation's best. It is known as Nature Play and sits in Royal Park, next to the Royal Children's Hospital. ......Built for $5.5 million and opened last March, the park has 1200 trees, gullies, grasslands and a hill with dramatic city views. And, to the chagrin of many parents and the delight of their children, the park also includes a water play area encouraging kids to work together to pump and dam water, before finally being released it into a sandpit......Special team wheeling a patient in a hospital bed or wheelchair to the edge of play areas."