Little Locals Auchenflower

Each week at Little Locals, we don our hats and our high-vis vests and explore the diverse natural environments around us. Bush Kindy inspires stories, connections, and a deep respect for the world around us. They invite children to play, learn and develop essential life skills.

Bush Kindy is planning for the unplanned and giving children immersive access to the great outdoors. Our carefully crafted program allows children to engage in unstructured outdoor play, where they can make their own discoveries and decisions in safe, engaging natural environments. At its roots, Bush Kindy facilitates holistic learning and development, and children take the lead.

Your young learner will interact with their surroundings in a way that ignites their interests, building trust in their own decisions and kindling a life-long love of learning.

What does Bush Kindy look like at Little Locals Auchenflower?
We understand the high demands on families and are committed to ensuring our children do not miss out due to the pressure’s households face.  Part of this commitment is providing children with regular access to the great outdoors. Our Bush Kindy trips are intended to be a time of uninterrupted play where children take the lead. During our trips, children use nature as their third teacher to facilitate their own learning. At our site, the children have access to creeks with running water, large trees to climb, bridges and hills to run up and roll down. Like indoor classrooms, educators scaffold the children’s learning and provide resources such as books, binoculars, magnifying glasses to further foster these interests.

Where is it held?
Little Locals Auchenflower Bush Kindy is run at J C Slaughter falls, Mt Coot-Tha which is a 7min drive from the Centre. We travel to and from the site by our own bus. As a part of selecting our Bush Kindy site, we ensure that the site is not only safe for us but that we are able to commit to maintaining, caring, and protecting the land in which we learn on. This includes working as a team to develop a 3-year sustainability plan.

How it all started?
When we opened Little Locals Auchenflower, we knew that Mt-Coot-Tha was close by and as part our commitment to community connections, we wanted to ensure our Little Locals were given access to this. What started off as an excursion quickly grew into a concept much greater than we could have imagined. We always knew we wanted to run a regular outing to Mt-Cootha but the concept really took off with our children, families and staff and soon we were heading out multiple times a week!