Forest School Jo

We all get the idea that going outside for a walk is good for us. Fresh air, moving muscles, blood pumping... Physically it is great for toning muscles and even losing weight, but the overwhelming evidence demonstrates that it does far more for our wellbeing than just boosting our bodies! This week has been Children's Mental Health Week , so it seems a good time to look at all the proven benefits of being outdoors. Both for children and for adults. I'm sure I'm preaching to the converted here, but I will include links that help prove the point for those of you who need to convince others elsewhere For Children the benfits come from fresh air in developing lungs, immune-system building microbes from soil, resilience due to seasons and weather, space to move, and endless things to discover which feed their minds and grow their curiosity! It sets the tone for being active for life , and stimulates their need to explore and investigate for themselves - learning. It builds co...

To fully understand how children learn, we need to understand how they experience that learning. A lot of what we as adults have learned in life feels inate. Most of us don't remember being taught to walk or talk, we don't necessarily remember being taught to hold a pencil or crayon, or how to wash ourselves. We just 'know' these things.  Yes, for some of us, these skills were trickier than others, but if we have 'mastered' them, we do them without a second thought.  We never had planned 'lessons' in tidying up, most of us started when we were small by putting things back in a toy box, hopefully as a game! Yes, it may have been a struggle once putting things away ceased to be fun, but we all understand the concept - even if we're not good at it! I appreciate there are factors surrounding something this' simple' which means even for us adults there is a vast scale of who does and doesn't do this well...! In education, we go through waves o...