“When I think back to the outdoor learning of my childhood I think of building cubbies and making boats out of sticks in flowing water.” Katherine Wilson said.

At River Street Early Learning Centre we use the outdoor environment within our program to extend on many learning opportunities but STEM is one of my personal favourites. I think it’s because you can actually see right in front of you the children are working things out, their brain is ticking away right in that moment.

We can use ropes and pullies to look into action and reaction, rocks and sand to look at weight and measurement. We use cameras and tablets to film and revisit our learning on a daily basis and to record the outcomes to our experiments.

Our children are constantly building and reworking objects, building fires and discussing how tall our plants have grown. STEM has an everyday appearance in our yard.  All the children no matter their age or ability have the opportunity to work with their hands and their minds to actually figure out these scientific and mathematical problems.

I have decided journey further into STEM as I am so passionate about education and the fact that children should brought up in this world to be confident and capable young people who believe in themselves and their abilities and I can see STEM education directly making a difference.

Those who attend River Street Early Learning Centre know how passionate I am about our outdoor environment and it has taken three years of trial and error to create the environment we have now. These environments don’t just happen by accident, I lot of thought has gone into the placing of each and every stone, plant, blocks of wood, hills, and shade structures

We supply our children with many loose parts such as logs, sticks, ropes, pullies, chain and we have placed objects such as rings to trees and logs around to supply places for the children to explore and investigate how to make things work.

It is these opportunities that I believe, create strong, confident, and self-reliant children that are ready to take their educational journey further and learn to enjoy the thrill of learning the excitement behind working something out.

Sponsored by:  riverstreetearlylearning.com.au