MAKING LEARNING VISIBLE - An Exhibition of Children's Work

Reflections Nursery & Forest School will be exhibiting work by children since 2006 to celebrate first 5 years of Reflections. 

Entitled 'Making Learning Visible' (a direct reference to pedagogical documentation in the pre-schools of Reggio Emilia), children's project work will be displayed at Lime Cafe, St Paul's on Richmond Road, Worthing, UK from 2nd to 8th October 2011. 

The installation/ exhibition will be interactive for children and adults and will feature documented projects ranging from the very first project called, "We get milk from goats, too" through to more recent projects such as "Crocodile!" and "Light Everywhere". 

Lots more information will follow...       

Reflections Forest School - short film

We have added a short film to Vimeo as a taster of Reflections Forest School to give you a flavour of what the children get up to:

http://vimeo.com/25553467

Or go to our Forest School Page:

http://www.reflectionsnurseries.co.uk/default.aspx?pageid=39

Reflections Forest School Documentary 2011 Parts 1 and 2

Have a look on You Tube to see our Forest School documentary. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-cuLtYOzBM and here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb8P674XiIw&feature=related

It's a useful introduction to Forest School if you are wondering what they are all about.  Reflections takes groups of 3 and 4 year olds into the woodland twice a week, for 30 weeks a year.  Following our approach in the nursery, the children tend to take the lead. Experiences include physical activities; storytelling; theorising & problem-solving; developing an understanding of nature, flora & fauna; creative expression; and development of skills. We give time to relationships and teamwork and children develop independence, self-regulation and confidence in the outdoors.  

For more information go to: 

http://www.reflectionsnurseries.co.uk/default.aspx?pageid=39

    

How do you work with pre-school children?

How do you approach your work with pre-school children? At Reflections we tend to approach our work in the way illustrated below, beginning with a provocation based on the child's or children's interests.  Does anyone/ everyone else? Please let us have your comments on our approach and any comparisons with the way in which you might work.  Thanks in advance :)

Great woodland session in the rain today!

The children had a great time in the forest in the rain - we made a mammoth trap. Sadly we didn't catch any mammoths but we managed to trap four children. :)

What Reflections' Crocodile project book is all about...

Just thought it best to clear up any misconceptions. The Crocodile! project book, published by On Reflection Publishing, features a three-month project by children aged 3-5 years in Reflections Nursery, Worthing, UK.   

Crocodile! is not intended as a 'how to' book. The book is intended to show how the project worked in this particular setting, with this group of 50 children, at a particular time, following the interests and motivations of the group and a number of individual children. Our hope is that educators, artists and anyone who takes an interest in children's development will take ideas from our approach to working with children which might inform their own practice or understanding.

In this project, our approach was to present the children with something new and observe, and later analyse, their response to it - in this case a crocodile head. If we have a message, it isn't, 'get a crocodile head'.  It would be more about introducing new concepts to children and standing back to see where they might lead, then slowing things down to experience the learning.   We hope that you will approach the book in this context. 

Please see feedback from a recent buyer of the book:

I have received the copy of Crocodiles today and wanted to congratulate you all on a superb piece of work, from the project and practice to the quality of the book.  I hope you plan to produce some more examples of your work in the future.

Jan White

Consultant for Outdoor Provision in the Early Years

       
Reflections Nursery, Worthing, West Sussex, UK

Fairy Den at Reflections Forest School today

Emily (4 years 3 months) saw a fairy go into the fairy den but she's flown out now.