Trading pencils for puddles: Forest School a hit with Corner Brook kids

Call it old-fashioned, but the owner of Corner Brook's new Sapling Forest School believes children are at their best when they're outside.

Early childhood educator Jacqueline Bennett is expanding her expertise from the classroom to the great outdoors by offering a new day camp in Corner Brook.

"It provides an outdoor learning environment that allows a child to explore freely," said Bennett.

"They get a chance to connect with the forest and really reap the benefits of what it has to offer."

Bennett is registered as a Forest School facilitator through Forest School Canada, a flagship educational project of the Child and Nature Alliance. She learned about the program from a flyer she saw at the College of the North Atlanticand, after taking the course in St. John's, quickly realized it was a perfect match.

"It really fit with my values and what I wanted to offer children moving forward in my career. It made sense for me because I'm an outdoors person," she said.

"I spent a lot of time playing in the forest as a child, and like a lot of adults, some of my fondest memories happened in the puddles, or in the bushes, and I think these are some of the most valuable lessons a child can learn".

Learn, play, get messy

While there are elements of structure throughout the day, many of the experiences and lessons taught during the week-long camp are determined by the children themselves.

Bennett said a key part of her role as a facilitator is observation.

"I had a child last week who was really into beetles. He mentioned it once, and I caught it, and he mentioned it twice and three times, so we talked about bugs," she said.

"Because I took the topic of a beetle, and it was the child's idea, he was much more engaged than he would have been if we had talked about flowers, or the weather."

While the idea of trying to teach anything outside to an excited group of totsmay seem daunting, Bennett says being in the woods has an unexpected calming effect on the kids.

"Of course I guide behaviour to include kindness,but I don't find myself needing to correct unnecessary behaviour," said Bennett.

"Oftentimes in classroom settings we find ourselves telling children to sit down and sit still, or be quiet for a moment. Because I allow children to be so free, they are free in their expression, therefore I don't need to structure them."

Aboriginal teachings

Bennett identifiesas Cree with roots in theKahkewistahaw First Nation in Saskatchewan. That, combined with spending the summers in Corner Brook visiting her father's family, is part of what she says contributed to a lifelong love of the outdoors something she's passing on to her pupils.

"I provide the environment and sometimes they catch on and they hook on and connect to the forest spiritually, and sometimes they don't, and that's OK. And what I mean by that is a child may finally understand the importance of life around us," she said.

"I acknowledge the aboriginal people that were on the land before us, that there have been people hunting and living off the land for many, many years before we arrived, and they have a respect for the forest that we must honour."

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