The bush as a context for learning 

Tamariki at Open Spaces Preschool near Whangārei spend three days a week in the bush playing, exploring, discovering, and learning. Mostly, they learn about how they fit into this environment and how old stories are influencing the stories they are enacting now. The kaiako believe that to feel at ease in a place, infants and toddlers need opportunities to experience it. 

Place-based Education is a framework this centre has adopted to guide its practice, asking, “How can we make the learning for this infant or toddler genuine and authentic?” It all starts with infants and toddlers knowing who they are and where they come from. This identity construction is a process of intertwining the physical, social, and cultural to make the whole person. 

Kaiako are intentional in planning this approach. They provide opportunities for infants and toddlers to feel the breeze, crunch the leaves, and listen to the plop of raindrops on the forest floor. Rich oral language is used to talk about what is seen, heard, and felt. Stories of Tāne are read, secret fairy houses are built, and all the magical spots discovered are named. Local awa, maunga, and the centre are woven into the story of the rohe. Stories are told of their adventures.  

Through taking this approach to curriculum design, children’s sense of belonging is nurtured and their identity as confident and competent learners develops.