Empowered Family Day Care Service

As passionate and knowledgeable early childhood educators, we advocate for nature play and connect the children in our service to nature and the outdoors. Across our family day care service, you will find children playing in mud, climbing in trees, running barefoot, hunting for bugs, going on adventures, growing veggie gardens, tending to the chooks or worm farms and using natural resources in their crafts and learning.

Our mission is to not only to educate children, but to create a culture where our educators are included and supported to feel empowered to achieve their goals as early childhood professionals. This in turn allows them to empower the children of the future to believe in themselves and become life-long learners – and so, our Bush & Beach Kindergarten Program emerged.

Empowering Educators to Empower Children.

Case Study

Bush & Beach Kindy with EFDCS: Going back to basics in nature

Empowered Family Day Care Service (EFDCS) provides our educators across all of our regions with the opportunity to join our monthly Beach & Bush Kindergarten Sessions, or alternatively implement the program in their own services or local surrounds.

Created and implemented by a trained early childhood teacher, the program is specifically designed to create opportunities for the children, educators and families to engage in nature play; to learn from and in nature and to create a sense of belonging within our empowered community.

From a child’s perspective, what do we do

at Bush Kindy?

“Hiding….1,2,3,4,5…. ready come.” – Marcus

“Go walking…. story….draw…. I like to draw Tan.” – Layla

“Play…. chase my friends.” – Koa

Our monthly sessions are focused on unstructured nature play, but the children are invited to join in for a group story or game, and participate in nature arts and crafts based around our theme of the month. Some of the themes we have explored so far include; wombat stew, igniting our senses, investigating rock pools and being eco-warriors.

Our Bush & Beach Kindy ‘classroom’ has taken us on many magical adventures based around the children’s desires and interests. They are taught safe boundaries in which they must stay, yet they are allowed a great deal of freedom for exploration, gross and fine motor development, and countless learning opportunities. They learn how to manage risks and develop critical thinking skills. They learn literacy and numeracy concepts, science and arts through play. All from the natural and physical world.

Reflections from an avid Bush & Beach Kindy Explorer

“At Beach Kindy I love splashing in the water and looking for little sea creatures in the water especially crabs. I also like wearing my special shoes and my orange vest. I love finding things in the water to put in our basket to make special pictures with. I also like playing with our friends.”

“At Bush Kindy I love walking through the trees and looking for rocks, leaves and sticks to make wombat stew. I like having a picnic morning tea and playing with all my friends.”

Abi – 3 years old (16.04.2020)