Forest Kids Early Learning http://www.forestkids.ca/

I came across this fantastic children's centre Hammonds Plains in Nova Scotia, Canada. It provides child care that encourages children to embrace the natural environment in all its elemental physicality. The centre recognizes 'the value of play' and understands that by allowing children the chance to be free to engage with the natural environment they can have a more rounded and enjoyable learning experience. Through this engagement and being part of a group they learn about the wider issues of growing up such as  trust and responsibility. Looking, seeing, collecting and foraging all give rise to creativity, helping them find their own individuality. It is the simple things that children need to generate inquisitiveness. Engaging with the elements, playing within the woods climbing, building, paddling learning about the materiality of the world around them.

​'When we love the earth, we are able to love ourselves more fully. I believe this. The ancestors taught me it was so. As a child I loved playing in dirt, in that rich Kentucky soil, that was a source of life' (Hooks B,2009, pg. 34)