Learning Through Play has been a wonderful way to welcome the boys and girls back to St Clare’s Abbey. We have particularly embraced facilitating Learning Through Play in the outdoors, in keeping with PHA advice to increase time spent outdoors during the school day. Covid-19 has had a significant impact on all children around the world. It had temporarily taken away the opportunity to engage in meaningful play with peers and caused major changes to children's lives and routines; all of this will undoubtedly have had an impact on emotional wellbeing of our children. Therefore, we have spent a lot of time supporting the children as they reconnected with their peers through play in the outdoors. We are so lucky to have a Forest on our school site and this was where we spent lots of fabulous mornings embracing nature, having uninterrupted time to get lost in adventure, using an incredible amount of space to explore and get involved.
Have a look at some of the videos and photographs which showcase the wonderful experiences the children have had since returning to school. As the weeks progressed they have delved deeper into areas of our forest. They have spent time moving up a variety of gradients and levels, negotiating their steps on sloping ground and forging their own pathways. This type of movement is so important for physical development, and the forest environment is perfect for working together, listening and learning from each other. They gathered leaves, dug for artifacts and chatted about how to treat the living things in our natural world.
Follow this link for some ideas as to how you can create experiences like this in nature at home!
https://storage.googleapis.com/siteassetsswd/109/docletter/20201118115255_49_Play_based_learning_at_home_being_in_nature.pdf
