The Natureweavers Place

Natureweavers is a nature based exploration and education program.

It a place where children gather to experience their local wildspace. Alongside their guides, Carly Garner and Fiona Ball, we work and play interpretively to discover the wonder of green spaces by making, being and doing with head, heart and hands.

We gather at various times in various spaces, exploring a range of wild spaces on and around the Sunshine Coast. We utilise principles of deep ecology, anthroposophy and ecological literacy to facilitate children's learning outdoors. We believe in education through exploration - that children's learning emerges naturally in the course of the exploration and interaction with the landscape.

We select an appropriate setting which is not the \'usual\' one for children\'s day to day learning and is not a \'regulated\' play setting such as a park - usually a local wild space and we tend to alternate between bush/forest, which is enclosed
and quiet, and the beach/river which is expansive and bright. In this way we honor the duality of the developing child - as the child's distinct sense of Self develops so too does their sense of connectedness with nature. We believe this way of working leads to a deep and sustainable connection and may well develop our next generation of ecological warriors.

We gather with the children into wild spaces with an intent to learn from the space - in very real terms such as bush skills, plant identification and environmental systems, but also the more internal learning - to foster a connection to their land, to allow the children to be still, to listen, to feel, to see, to be unhurried.

Programs are child-led and guided with respect - for children and for earth. A key aspect of our child-led approach is self-risk assessment - we don\'t stand underneath a child climbing a tree with our arms waiting to catch them. We encourage the climber to use the skills he/she has available to them and to choose what is right for them in that situation. We believe this is the natural instinct of children and we support and enable this to occur.

We create - both ephemeral art and take-home pieces - utilising natural materials and traditional skills. We prepare and share a seasonal meal. We tell the story of the land we are standing on. We build forts and fairy houses then take them down again. We build fires, carve walking sticks and write words on the sand with mangrove \'pens\'. We see how far our gaze penetrates through the forest canopy then create stories of what is beyond our gaze. We lay tracks for others to follow. We stand inside burnt out tree trunks and count the spiders. We climb, run, dig, somersault, splash. We get dirty, and we get wet, and we get hot and we get muddy. And we sit, quietly.

What we don\'t do is come at this work from a place of deficit, disorder or environmental catastrophe which we have seen as the motivation for much of this kind of work with children in contemporary education. We don\'t impart a sense of overwhelming responsibility for the state of the environment on the children. Our motivation is one of knowing, sharing and reverence - for earth and for children.

We have combined backgrounds in primary education (32 years), environmental advocacy (9 years), individual and organisational capacity building (12 years), permaculture, yoga, anthroposophy and parenting. We feel compelled to work with children and earth in this way.