Loose Parts = Creativity. Road Trip to Lithuania Part 3

Sometimes, no matter how much we think we know something, we have to actually witness it ourselves to truly believe it! 
Last month, I was fortunate to spend a week in the company of other educators as passionate about getting children outdoors as I am. 4 of us from very different settings and countries (Martin from an outdoor preschool in Cornwall, Unnur from a traditional nursery in Iceland, Lesley from a cooperative nursery school in Washington, D.C. and myself from a nursery unit in a primary school) all came together to help share our practice and experiences with educators, parents and children at 2 newly established outdoor nurseries in Lithuania - one in Vilnius and one in Kaunas called Lauko Darželis.
On the two days we spent in the nurseries I was able to see just why schools need to have loose parts on offer in their playgrounds. Young children are so open to new ideas and have that self-belief that they can make anything they want to from whatever resources they have to hand but somehow as children get older they seem to lose this ability. 
As I teach in a nursery unit in a larger primary school, I get to see most of the children I have taught as they move on up through the school. It always makes me a little sad when I encounter those same children who believed they could make anything or draw anything as 3 year olds, tell me as 8 or 9 year olds that they can't draw or wouldn't know how to go about making an aeroplane with junk. I know something is happening in our education system to stifle their natural creativity but until last month I hadn't really connected the importance of loose parts and this creativity.

A load of pallets and within a few minutes an insect hotel is created.

On the day we were in the Vilnius nursery Martin & Unnur spied a pile of pallets and immediately thought 'insect hotel'! They were able to grab a load of pallets and quickly make a basic frame for it, then some of the children and staff from the nursery began to fill in the hotel; they were able to find all of the necessary elements in the playground - sticks, logs, pipes, long grasses etc. As I watched the take ownership of the hotel and begin to fill it in I realised that by having all those component loose parts close to hand the nursery was allowing the children and adults to be as creative as possible. How many times do children want to make something to enhance their play, only to look around a playground and only see fixed equipment?

The bare metal structure getting it's woven 'walls'.

Another day at the nursery in Kaunas, we initially decided to make a temporary den using a metal frame that was already in situ, we found long, leafy branches to weave around the frame and then added larger trees branches to the roof to create a cosy den for the children. They immediately moved in to this space - getting longer branches to make a 'door' and adding containers and pine cones to create a 'kitchen'.

The children take control of this den and begin to make it theirs.

But this wasn't enough for the really creative members of the team! Martin, Unnur and Lesley began to look about for another project and when a member of staff mentioned that they would ned a sleeping area for the following week when the children began to attend full time, Martin spied the potential of a clump of trees! All that as needed, that wasn't already on site were some tarps and ropes and hey presto, within a matter of hours a sleeping area had been created amongst the trees. As I watched this unfold, it again struck me that none of this could have happened without the necessary components being  readily available. This time, of course, it wasn't loose parts, strictly speaking, as they had to cut trees and branches to get the basic frame but this project showed what can be achieved in the right environment. If playgrounds have sticks, logs, crates, tyres and tarps readily available at playtime, then if/when they wanted to children could build shelters.

As I witnessed these projects I realised that children and adults can only be as creative as their environment allows them to be and that by letting children spend time in a natural environment like the woods or to be surrounded by loose parts, we can but only help them to become or remain creative.

The finished shelter getting an entrance!

Please read some more about our time in Lithuania here:

http://takomacooperativeschool.org/2015/07/jump-trust-at-lauko-darzelis/

http://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/choice-and-memories-lithuania-road-trip.html

http://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/play-is-universal-language.html

Martin teaches at Highway Farm Activity Centre

Unnur teaches at Leikskólinn Stekkjarás 

Lesley teaches at Takoma Park Cooperative Nursery School

Play is the universal language. Road Trip to Lithuania Part 2

The magical entrance to the outdoor nursery at Kaunas.

Each year for the past 10 I have had at least one child who enters the class with little or no English. I firmly believe the preschool year is the best year for this to happen, as it is so language rich as an environment & also very visual. The adults tend to mime most of the actions they are asking the children to do - washing hands, putting in coats etc. 

I watch each year as these 3 and 4 year olds make connections with us and their peers as they play, at first just playing alongside each other but then gradually playing with each other. It is always wonderful to witness this connection through play.

Last week as I spent a morning at Lauko Darželis in their 2nd and newest nursery in Kaunas, I was reminded how important play is for making connections with young children. I speak no Lithuanian and the children spoke no English yet as we played alongside each other in the sand pit, we were able to make a connection. The children were making sand pies & at first were just content to play alone but then they began to watch each other to see how each was achieving a different end result. As I looked around to find some decorations for my sand pie, they began to include me in their play. 

One child asked his mother (one of the two teachers in the nursery)  how to get me to come and play with him and when she told him to say "Please come" he used this all morning as an invitation for me to follow him or join him in his play.

During our week in Lithuania, we had talked debated about how so many preschools look exactly the same & therefore the theory is that you could drop a blind folded teacher into any setting and they would feel 'at home'. I would argue that you could drop anyone who still has the capacity to play anywhere in the world and they would manage to make connections with others. 

A skilled adult can play alongside a young child making the teaching implicit.

It made me realise that this is how the young children in my class without English manage to find their feet so quickly - they learn so much of the mechanics of school by playing alongside their peers and by imitating what they see.

I had similar experiences in Norway when I spent a week in a kindergarten and picked up more words while playing with the children than I ever did by just listening to adults talking. It does make me realise how much harder it is for children who have to join a class at a much older age when there are less opportunities to learn by doing as opposed to listening to instructions and less chances to 'play' outdoors.

By chance this piece by Dr. Scott Sampson (http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/31890-swapping-screen-time-for-getting-dirty-why-kids-need-to-spend-more-time-outside) appeared in my feed today and it reiterated what I was trying to say: being outdoors in nature and playfulness go hand in hand and it was the latter quality that allowed me to interact with the young children at Lauko Darželis.

The sooner we all realise that the preschool experience should be as informal and as outdoor based as possible the better.

You can read some more about the outdoor nurseries in Lithuania in the following posts: On my blog:http://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/choice-and-memories-lithuania-road-trip.html
And this one over at Takoma Park Cooperative Nursery School: http://takomacooperativeschool.org/2015/07/jump-trust-at-lauko-darzelis/

Choice and Memories. Road trip to Lithuania Part 1!

I was fortunate to be offered a chance to spend a week with 3 friends and early years practitioners from around the world (Martin from Highway Farm Activity Centre, Cornwall, Unnur from Leikskólinn Stekkjarás , Iceland and Lesley from Takoma Park Cooperative Nursery School, Washington D.C.) taking part in work shadowing and sharing practice, ideas and experiences with colleagues in 2 outdoor nurseries in Lithuania - one in Vilnius and one in Kaunas.

Lesley, Zilvinas, me, Unnur and Martin.

Our host for the week was Zilvinas Karpis, the founder and impetus behind the outdoor nurseries known as 'Lauko Darzelis' in Lithuania. (http://laukodarzelis.lt) As a parent, Zilvinas, had been disappointed by the lack of outdoor experiences on offer in any of the more traditional nurseries he looked at for his own children. Rather than complain about it and wait for someone else to do something about the situation, he decided to set up an outdoor nursery in the incredible Pavilniai Regional Park in Vilnius last year. This is considered one of the smaller regional parks at only 2127 hectares! 
Over the past year the nursery has renovated a small wooden house in a larger area to provide a cosy indoor space for the children to retreat to in the winter or on very wet days. It is a 2 story building with the upper sloped floor providing a sleeping area for wet or very cold days - otherwise the children sleep outside under canvas to help keep them cool on hot days.

On the day we visited the children had just had their breakfast on the verandah and were ready to head out for a 2 hour walk around the park. They choose a different route every day and we broke up into 2 pairs to go walking with the 2 groups - the under 3's and the older children, the latter also included children over the usual nursery age of  7 as it was summer holidays and the nursery offers a summer camp for those older children who are on school holidays.

Our route took us into an old munitions building and the children had fun climbing up into the building and enjoying the acoustics while they sang before they had fun jumping off the big platform inside. They were lots of different plants to explore in this space too.

Lesley shares some of the photos she had taken of them jumping off.

The pace of the walk was taken at the pace of the children, we stopped if they came upon something of interest to them - like a pile of logs to clamber on and one of the teachers made them a seesaw by placing a log just so on the pile.

After walking for about an hour we stopped on the banks of the river Vilnia to allow the children to have some snack. They each carry their own snack and change of clothes in their own rucksacks and some even had little mats for sitting on when they stopped. his was an idyllic place to enjoy refuelling for the next part of the walk. Some of the children had been at nursery since 8.00 and had had breakfast provided by the nursery earlier, this snack as brought form home and was mainly bread, biscuits or fruit. I was impressed at their independence as every child unpacked their own snack and opened/closed their own boxes without any adult help.

A perfect spot for snack.

Some children sat with friends or with a teacher, others chose to sit apart enjoying watching the river flowing past. After most had finished they packed up and head off again.Even though we didn't speak any Lithuanian and only a few of the children spoke English, we had no problem communicating with each other, most of the children would just chatter away to us regardless of whether we replied or not. And they had no problem conveying their wishes to be photographed in a favourite spot!

After another while meandering along the path, the children reached a part of the bank where the river was less fast flowing and they soon had their socks and shoes off and were paddling in the river. The sound of their laughter was lovely to hear and those people walking past couldn't help but smile at their behaviour.

At this point we swapped groups and Lesley and I headed up the hill to meet the younger children whilst Unnur and Martin joined the bigger children in the river.
This group was walking at a much slower pace as dictated by the youngest child who was only 2. He enjoyed stopping ever 2-3 minutes to explore something exciting on the path. The little ones enjoyed gathering leaves to drop over the side of a bridge to watch them float down the river.

After around 2 hours we all arrived back at the main site of the nursery and they children had their lunch on the verandah. The nursery provides a hot vegetarian meal at mid day and the children all eat together. (It is a vegetarian meal because there are  a lot of children at the nursery who have a variety of food intolerances.)

After lunch the children had a sleep or rest time, on this day they were sleeping outside under canvas to keep them cool in the sun. Those older children who weren't tired played around the main building, climbing trees, reading books or digging in the sand.

As the children woke up they gradually began to play again within the main space where there are lots of loose parts to engage with. Martin and Unnur began to build an insect hotel with some of the many pallets that were lying about - I'll write a post about that later.

So many great loose parts available to play with.

We used this time to explore the wider site with Zilvinas, as he shared his plans for some of the other buildings on the site. I would love to return to this setting is a few years to see all  that is planned by them. 

We also met with the Mayor of Vilnius and some of his advisors to show them some short presentations on our settings. He was impressed that each country and setting was so different yet the message was the same - children who are offered the opportunity to play outdoors and learn in a more natural environment are more rounded individuals. Then we had an opportunity to chat with some of the parents and staff, to explain where our settings were at present with regards to outdoor practice. It as a good chance to answer any questions the parents had - this is such a new experience for many of them, they just needed reassurance from others that their children will be ok if they are outside in all weathers.

This is such an exciting time for all of those involved in this new outdoor education revolution in Lithuania, most of all it reinforced to me how far I have come in my own practice in the last 8 years, as I could recognise some of their fears of apprehensions as being the same ones I had had or encountered at that time too.
What I realised was that most parents want their children to have carefree childhoods filled with memories of climbing trees, paddling in streams, getting dirty etc. - most educators who claim that parents don't want that are deluding themselves.
More importantly Lauko Darzelis offers choice for parents who want something different for their children. We showed the parents that the nursery system does not have to be a one size fits all experience, as each of us are from very different settings and countries and yet are able to offer the children in our care outdoor learning experiences on a daily basis.
To quote Michael Fullan, the professional capital was high and getting the opportunity to spend time with like-minded individuals has helped to recharge me and re-enthuse me, ready for a new school year.

Lesley has also written a post on this setting, you can read about it here: http://takomacooperativeschool.org/2015/07/jump-trust-at-lauko-darzelis/

A massive thanks to Zilvinas and his family for all that they did for us during the week and to all the staff, parents and children who made our visit such an enjoyable and worthwhile experience.