Family Day Care Cairns

2020 may go down as a year nobody will ever forget however the children in care at North Queensland Family Day Care will always remember it as the year Forest School arrived in Townsville, our second Forest School initiative.

Our Cairns and Townsville Forest School program has provided opportunities for imaginations to run wild with adventures enjoyed going on a croc hunt and spotting crocodile eyes in the “Bog of Eternal Stench!” Children have discovered water spiders dancing on the top of the water, wondered why the creek flows faster in some parts of the creek than others, and saved tadpoles from puddles slowly drying up, transferring them safely into the creek. We have found frogs and caught fish on our handlines. The children have learned about our First Peoples creating fish traps and rock paths across the creek to balance on and challenge skills.

We have watched the environment and creek change with the season and seen firsthand the effects a wet season has on the environment.

Our Forest School programs are child-led and assist all children to grow as individuals and develop skills and confidence as well as support healthy relationships amongst the children and with the environments in which they live. Our Forest School sessions encourage learning to evolve, taking the children’s ques to extend, expand, and complexify thinking. We have noticed that children’s conversations during these sessions demonstrate quite a depth of complexity and that children’s thinking often takes an imaginative and creative outlook as children have time to wonder, to question, to consider, and to collaborate in an authentic and meaningful way. At every session, the children collect wood for a fire and enjoy hot milo and toasted muffins. This has become part of our routine and is a time for children to relax and share with friends. Recently, a four-year-old shared his understandings with the group about the complexity of erosion on the environment.

We have added a Zipline to our sessions and this has created new challenges for children, building confidence. The children have also enjoyed ephemeral art at our sessions using found resources to create representational pictures.

At North Queensland Family Day Care, we are extremely proud of our young foresters and the enthusiastic and engaged learning that occurs.

Family Day Care Cairns provide quality professional child care and education for babies to school leavers in collaborative partnership with families and the community. Through a balance of natural and constructed resources and environments children are involved and connected to their world. Their Forest School programs are the perfect environment for rich learning through play and recreation.