Forest kindergartens: Here are 80 percent children. they spend time outdoors

After the winter break, the children go on trips regularly - they pack backpacks with lunch, blankets, ropes, a portable toilets and various educational aids on a pram, and go deep into the forest.

Maybe to shacks? Or maybe to the Hole - full of tree roots, perfect for a hiding place, and the sand into which to jump so wonderfully?

In summer, they eat wild strawberries straight from the bushes, observe shiny beetles and bring large spiders from the meadows to the base. In hot weather, they cool down under the garden sprinklers. When they get tired, they lie down under mosquito net canopies, and are lulled to sleep by the rustle of leaves. In autumn, they pack more blankets to keep them warm for breakfast under pine, spruce, maple or oak.

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They collect leaves, thread rowan beads on threads, test the resistance of rubber boots. They try to cross the swamp, each according to their own ideas (some even manage to fall into it).

In winter, they go sledging and cross-country skis, eat snow and cook jelly on the campfire that burns at the base every Wednesday (in summer they cooked nettle soup on it and fried potato and zucchini pancakes from their own garden).

And every day they climb trees, cook in a mud kitchen, play in houses made of pallets, swing on hammocks and swings suspended from trees, feed birds with food, burrow in the ground, build structures, jump on tires, ride on balance bikes abandoned carelessly or parked in wooden stands. And only sometimes, when it is hungry, too cold or wet - or when it is time for special didactic activities - do they go to spherical tents: huge domes that give the impression that, on the edge of the forest on the outskirts of Białystok, the base was broken up by a group of aliens, not preschoolers, and their teachers.

All over the world, children in forest kindergartens spend eighty percent of their time outside of the year. Some parents are flooded with a nostalgic wave of childhood memories, others are overwhelmed by the fear of the cold, rain, ticks, pee and poop.

What teachers are afraid of

The tents of "Puszczyk", the first forest kindergarten in Poland without a building, stand in a meadow and therefore mice sometimes appear in them. Once, they used up all the fluff from a vest left in a chest (each child has a chest full of clothes to change and treasures: unique sticks, stones, cones).

- If I know that a mouse is prowling in the tent, I am mentally focused and it is like that. The worst thing is when it takes me by surprise - confesses Zosia, the youngest tutor who joined the staff in January. The children do not get to know anything about themselves, just like the second tutor in this group, Weronika.

- I am afraid of spiders, but I do not tell my children about it, so as not to arouse prejudices. In the spring they bring such big, juicy ones on their hands and say: "Look, Weronika!". So I do the same.

Similarly, Kasia Timofiejew, who finished the forest school leader course in Ireland, but does not like some insects.

Emilia Opolska, special educator:

- With horror, I thought: how will I conduct classes in the forest, with a wood-fired goat? I am cold. I was getting tired of freezing temperatures down to minus 15 degrees Celsius and I had to constantly dress and undress in order to travel between the tents. But overall, I'm taking it better than I thought. Today Zosia is very warmly dressed, she even has thick winter pants that would be suitable for skiing, although March has just started and we have our first really sunny day.

- When I went to kindergarten for an internship in college, it was a regime: bow-tie legs, arms on my knees. This was what a three-year-old was expected to do! I felt that it should not be like this - he says. Recently, she worked in a tiny, cozy kindergarten on the estate, but she felt bluntly closed in it.

- I disagreed with many things there, but I had to act as expected. There is slack here. Freedom, but not arbitrariness - he says.

- When I came for the trial day and saw Malinka with the saw, I had the impulse to take her away. But Weronika said: "Trust her". Now I say myself: "Take it easy, children do not seek self-destruction" - she says.

"Fear is the greatest force that prevents parents from granting their children the freedom they enjoyed when they were little. Fear is the feeling that separates a child from all the benefits of contact with nature necessary for proper development," writes Richard Louv in his best-selling book. The Last Child of the Forest ", which was released in 2005 and confused many people. Among them were the mothers of the founder of a kindergarten near Bialystok. (...)

- Learning and playing take place in the surroundings of nature, the point is not to separate it, that the educational process lasts, as long as the weather allows - explains Agata Preuss, coordinator of the Polish Institute of Forest Kindergartens (PIPL), nature and forest educator and tutor at "Puszczyk". When the frost was minus twenty degrees, not all parents decided to send their children. The kindergarten day was much shorter (five hours long), and the form teachers called to the tent every half hour to let the children warm up (it is usually the children who decide when they need shelter).

- They rolled their eyes as if thinking: "What is the woman picking on us?" Agata says laughing.

Forest education

Forest kindergartens are immersed in nature. They don't have ready-made playgrounds or colorful plastic toys. Ideally, toys should not be understood at all, and children learn how to play with what they have at hand and develop their imagination. With delight, I once watched the children from the Forest Academy in Wieliczka, who played on a thick branch: once by bus, and then by plane.

The founding legend has it that it all started with Danish mum Ella Flatau, who in 1954 just started taking her children for walks in the woods. Soon neighbors with children joined her, and later others wanted to entrust her daughters and sons to their care. The idea took root in Sweden, where the weather is not pampering, but it was used to say that there is no bad weather, you can only dress inappropriately.

At the end of the 1960s, the Germans caught the idea (although the forest outposts were officially recognized there only in 1993), the English - in the 1990s, and the Poles - in the first decade of the 21st century. In Great Britain, the idea of ​​so-called forests schools is very popular - science classes for children from system schools, which are conducted in cycles of several weeks. In Germany, it is estimated that there are nearly three thousand kindergartens with the adjective "forest" in their names. No wonder that it was there, exactly in Waldenkindergarten in Leipzig, that years ago pioneers from Białystok watched how forest education was done. First, they set up a kindergarten, then also an institute that organizes trainings, conferences and postgraduate studies for teachers.

According to the map on the website of the Polish Institute of Forest Kindergartens, there are about fifty forest kindergartens in Poland, with 30 PIPL in regular contact. Apart from them, there are many initiatives that carry out classes in the forest in a different formula - kindergarten points, foundation projects or informal groups. In 2019, I visited two kindergartens, which have classrooms, but their pupils go to the forest every day. One of them is the Momo waldorf school kindergarten run by the Q'Natura Foundation in Krakow. Its co-founder Anna Andrykowska explained that young children quickly experience excess, even in a large room. In the forest they are calmer and more focused, because there are not so many stimuli that would generate tension. Nature also challenges them: they can fall off the log and try to climb it again, see that they can. Its repeatability gives a sense of security. Nature awakens sensitivity. Even those children who are lost at first and don't know how to play without toys find their way here quickly. They talk to worms, they hug trees. They establish a relationship with nature, so there is hope that in the future they will want to care for it.

To "Puszczyk", which started its activity with three girls six years ago, today there is a line of forty two children for one place. (...)

What parents are afraid of

Will they not get cold?

Sophie:

- Everyone thinks kids are cold. And we are freezing! They are constantly on the move.

At the beginning of "Puszczyk", my parents came with a suitcase full of clothes for various occasions. It quickly turned out that the overalls are not suitable - when the children want to pee under the bush, everything has to be taken off. Waterproof bib pants and a jacket are best. But in winter, children are unlikely to go deep into the forest.

Second fear: dirt. Some parents change their children right at the base - sometimes they go to the city later or to classes and they are a bit ashamed to show their consolation in a smudged entourage, although there are also those who cross the door of shops without embarrassment with fat children. Some people line the back of the car with foil so as not to muddy it. Recently, after the thaw, children have organized Venice here - they sleigh in large black puddles. Outdoor clothes, however, most often stay in the drying room - they cannot be washed too often, they would lose their properties.

- They will dry out, they will crumble - says Weronika sententiously.

Third fear: ticks. Some parents allow their caregivers to pull them out with tweezers, others do not. Then the caregivers call and the parents take the children to the hospital, where they will spend probably five hours.

Agata:

- We inform you about vaccination for tick-borne meningitis, we explain that it is not so that if the head is left, a tragedy occurs (the tick has no head - what can be left is a mouth that will fall off along with the scab). Each child also brings their own repellant, in spring and summer parents are required to spray them in the morning and we spray them during the day because the sprays last about four hours. The baby should be watched every day while bathing, because the shorter the tick is in the skin, the better. Lyme disease cannot be vaccinated, but its pathogen is transmitted only after about a day. Our president's daughter fell ill with Lyme disease. It is important to remember that when detected early and treated with an antibiotic, it is not serious. The worst are those who did not even know that they had caught the tick.

There are parents who are a bit worried about the toilets. There is a heated toilet container in the base, and in each tent, behind a screen, there is a yacht restroom. On trips to the forest, children take a potty-outhouse. When it is necessary to poop in the field, the children dig a hole with a garden spatula, put an outhouse, then bury it, and that's it. They use ecological paper for wiping, which decomposes quickly. And so most of the "twos" drop out after lunch, at the base.

There are also parents who tremble behind a tree and cry because they do not know "how is it, baby". Some people find it difficult to cut the umbilical cord. Do not imagine that the child will hit its head against a protruding stone. Until now, there was only one accident - a broken arm.

Some parents, as Agata puts it nicely, express concerns about the educational process. They are afraid that their children are not learning anything, they are just climbing trees. The curriculum is always available, they get it by e-mail. Contrary to the opinion of many teachers from an alternative environment, Agata does not think that the core curriculum is hopeless.

- It is a structured educational plan drawn up by specialists. You can discuss useful and unnecessary content, when to do what and how. The role of kindergarten is to prepare for school in each of the four areas: emotional, physical, social and cognitive. And it's not about the child counting and writing at an unknown level. The most important thing is physical and emotional development. If the child does not have the ability to move or climb at this stage of life, it will be difficult for him to develop in other areas. Our kindergarten children come out nicely prepared. Although no child after any kindergarten: forestry, in a building or Montessori, is ready for the system that awaits them.

Children have bushcraft and survival classes, learn on iPads, listen to concerts from world philharmonics (they are big fans of Chris Botti), recently watched fashion shows and later prepared their own collections and sewing rooms (some of them stayed on the topic for the whole month).

I talk to one of my mothers, Angelika Jackowska, about all these fears. Her older daughter Zuzia finished kindergarten, and the younger Maja is attending it. They were also afraid of ticks and being outside all the time.

"But in the end, it all has more advantages than disadvantages," he says. - Friends keep asking if our children are not sick. We explain what hardening is and that germs are less spread outside. Only a runny nose sometimes gets entangled.

Each of the daughters ended up in "Puszczyk". Zuzia loved to splash in the mud and be outside regardless of the weather, sometimes when it is cold, Maja tries to prevent her from going to kindergarten. Usually, however, she returns satisfied.

- In the previous kindergarten, although it was also not state-owned, Zuzka got black dots for running. She was frustrated by this and so were the teachers because they couldn't calm her down. And she just has a great and natural need for exercise at this age.

Angelika comes from the countryside, she spent her childhood outdoors and remembers how often she came back from a wandering around the area soaked, cold, but happy. As she negotiated with her mother: "Just five more minutes."

- The challenge is to go beyond the adult model. We are shaped in such a way that there must be a room, benches, and so must be. I was shocked to learn that in the average kindergarten and school, children spend even less time outside than American prisoners.

* More about the book "The Schools You Want To Go To Are Closer Than You Think!" you can read HERE !

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