Forest Kindergarten Research Articles

Ways of self-renewal of kindergarten teachers in forest kindergartens change

ABSTRACT The study examined the self-renewal and conceptual change kindergarten teachers in Israel, underwent from a professional career perspective in the process of implementing the transition to a forest kindergarten model. Educator’s career consists of four consecutive stages: entry, building, mid-career, and the late career. In education, self-renewal is a phenomenon characteristic in the mid-career stage. Self-renewal has scarcely been studied in early childhood educators. This article examines self-renewal based on interpretations of interviews with 19 kindergarten teachers in Israel who responded to an institutional initiative to create forest kindergartens. Results show three ways that mid-career kindergarten teachers used to update their pedagogical knowledge and reframe their educational perceptions. Self-renewal reflects the professional kindergarten teachers’ background based on their past experiences and aspects of entrepreneurial behavior. The article can help policymakers improve early childhood education and launch new enterprises.

Countermeasures for Teachers Under the Forest Kindergarten Model

With the popularization of the education concept of forest kindergarten in China, more and more teachers and parents recognize this education model. The forest kindergarten education model is based on nature. Children can release their nature in the outdoor forest, especially in the wild forest, and cultivate their leadership, independence, problem-solving ability and other abilities. In this education mode, preschool teachers play an important role. They no longer blindly impart professional knowledge, but hope to give full play to the autonomy of children, so they change from leading to auxiliary people. However, the responsibility of teachers is more significant, and they need to have more relevant knowledge to play the biggest role of nature for young children. This paper mainly discusses how preschool teachers should deal with the development model of forest kindergarten.

Affordances of Outdoor Risky Play in a Traditional and a Forest Kindergarten

Affordances of Outdoor Risky Play in a Traditional and a Forest Kindergarten

Learning While Playing: The Experience of Chinese Children’s Forest Kindergarten and the Exploration of the Parents’ Perspective

Learning While Playing: The Experience of Chinese Children’s Forest Kindergarten and the Exploration of the Parents’ Perspective

THE IMPORTANCE OF OUTDOOR LEARNING AT EARLY AGES

The idea of learning outside the classroom, i.e. learning outdoors, is not at all new and recent. The beginnings of outdoor learning can be found in the works of pedagogical classics (Russo, Froebel, Pestalozzi, Montessori) at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, but also by Serbian pedagogues, primarily Sreten Adžić, the first headmaster of the Serbian Royal Men’s Teacher’s School in Jagodina (1897), although they teach intuitively different skills, children’s play and stay outdoor is as old as human civilization. It wasn’t until the late eighteenth century that children began to be seen as individuals in their own right; previously they were regarded by society as miniature adults .. In the paper, we analyze the advantages and importance of outdoor learning for children at an early age and present the results of the students survey - future preschool teachers of the Faculty of Education of the University of Kragujevac, who, for the first time within their formal education, had the opportunity to, both theoretically and practically, become familiar with the basic principles of forest pedagogy and outdoor learning. 43 students of the final year of academic studies in the department for teacher in preschool institutions filled out the survey anonymously on a five-point Likert-type scale. The results show that students’ prior knowledge - future preschool teachers about forest pedagogy and outdoor learning is rather modest, that most respondents have positive opinion about working with children in nature and considers such work interesting, useful, but difficult and demanding. Future preschool teachers believe that the benefits of working with children in nature are great, starting with motor development, through physical and mental health, to the development of ecological awareness and a positive attitude towards nature as a whole. Significant number of respondents are of the opinion that by attending the proffesional meeting and workshop “Šumagogija (šuma meaning forest + pedagogy ) - forest pedagogy from idea to realization” significantly increased their professional competence by visiting the forest playground in the Botanical Garden in Kragujevac and openly expresses the view that, if given the opportunity, they would accept a job in the forest kindergartens. For these reasons it is necessary that forest pedagogy and methodological specifics of outdoor learning become an integral part of compulsory subjects at the basic studies of future preschool teachers, to systematically carry out professional development of people who work with children of early ages and to enable teachers who are already employed in preschool institutions to attended seminars, round tables, gatherings and teacher trainings that have as their theme work with children in nature, in the forest, and outdoors.

Forest Pedagogy towards the Problem of Polish Educational Monoculture: Projective Pilot Studies

The development of topics related to the idea of sustainable development, ecology and the climate crisis is increasingly supported by Polish educators, psychologists and therapists. At the same time, forest kindergartens as well as various grassroots initiatives based on the methodology of outdoor education are developing in Poland. The long-term achievements of practitioners - most often employees of the State Forests - for whom the forest education of the society has been one of the priorities since the early 1990s, deserves special appreciation (Wierzbicka and Czołnik 2022). In 2021, Forest Pedagogy was initiated in Poland as an interdisciplinary problem area, aspiring to a scientific sub-discipline (Paluch and Klimski 2022). The first contacts between foresters and educators gave rise to the question: Can the forest become a real “pedagogical medium” (Rykowski 2022), understood as an educational environment? What became clear was the problem of the similarity of the forest monoculture (management forests dominating in Poland) to the educational monoculture of the school and academic classroom system. Each monoculture is created with the view of matching the production demand for relatively identical objects – on the one hand, these can be trees “for boards”, but on the other hand, young people subjected to a systemic process of “labour force allocation” (Parsons 1969), serving the development of consumer attitudes. In both cases, the goal is to accelerate production, artificially stimulated competition, preventing the attainment of full maturity, or replicating an unambiguous and one-dimensional picture of the world. A symbolic illustration of the last phenomenon are the findings of a qualitative pilot study in which two groups of students completing a Forest Pedagogy course were asked to design a forest kindergarten. As it turned out, the respondents most often drew ordered elements of the urban playground infrastructure: swings, slides and sandboxes, in the vicinity of the building of the local kindergarten, which dominated the drawing. What is particularly poignant, in the analysed drawings the forest was only a symbolic background.

Are Polish Kindergartens Ready for The Outdoors? The State of (Im)maturity of the Polish Educational System and its Selected Members for Outdoor Education

As human beings, we are moving dramatically away from nature, which results in negative consequences for both mental and physical health. Highly developed countries see a special need to restore contact with nature as early as possible (Simonienko 2021, 74). Are Polish kindergartens also ready to provide children with education in nature? This article aims to describe the regulations of the educational law related to outdoor education in Polish kindergartens and to present the offer of educating teachers of early childhood education in the field of outdoor education at universities in Poland. Outdoor education is a term that does not have a clear equivalent in Polish. Depending on the translation and understanding, we can attribute different origins and meanings to it. The article presents terminological inaccuracies regarding outdoor education in Poland. The functioning of the education system is based on the activities performed by teachers, working both with the students and (indirectly) with parents. The last part of the text presents a description of selected attitudes of parents and children attending a forest kindergarten towards outdoor education.

A balancing act: a constructivist perspective of the adult’s role in Forest School in England and Forest Kindergarten in Denmark

ABSTRACT Influenced by Danish early years practice, Forest School in England is a popular way of young children experiencing the outside environment. Beyond this initial connection there is little known about the relationship between the two approaches, in particular the role of the adult. As a response, this study uses interview and observation to explore how practitioners and pedagogues understand and implement forest pedagogy in different contexts. Analysis of data through a constructivist lens, allowed the practices and behaviours of the sample four participants to be examined, providing new insight into the role of the adult. By identifying pedagogues co-constructed experiences with children, whereas practitioners scaffolded experiences for children, this paper recognises the complex role of the educator in Forest Learning and challenges previously held views. It concludes that both scaffolding and co-constructing behaviours are ways for adults to create forest experiences with and for children, although these create different outcomes. By acknowledging the different ways adults operate in forest settings, this paper suggests a re-examination of the role of adults in Forest School would be beneficial.

Time to play, time to think: meaningful moments in the forest

ABSTRACT This paper reports on a study carried out by tutors and students on Early Childhood Studies degree courses at a University in England. The research explored perspectives of three to six-year-old children’s outdoor play in Danish forest kindergartens with the aim of troubling and informing approaches to outdoor pedagogy. Inspired by Somerville and Powell’s ‘deep hanging out’ ([Somerville, M., and J. Powell. 2018. “Thinking Posthuman with Mud: And Children of the Anthropocene.” Educational Philosophy and Theory 51 (8): 829–840. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2018.1516138, 1) with data, researchers visited the kindergartens for a full day at a time during annual week-long field visits. This provided opportunities to notice the children’s journeys and possibilities over time. Findings showed that, given time and space to play in the forest, children were able to pursue their interests, engage in extended periods of concentration and thinking while working together as they played and explored with each other, with the educators and with the materiality of their surroundings. Implications for practitioners highlight the need to provide uninterrupted time for children to develop their curiosities and enjoyment of the outdoor environment.

Direction of Forest Kindergarten based on the Christian Worldview in the Climate Crisis era

Direction of Forest Kindergarten based on the Christian Worldview in the Climate Crisis era

Forest Kindergarten in Germany and Korea - An Empirical Comparative Study on the Educational Field of Aesthetics

This article presents a comparative international and cross-cultural study about aesthetics in in early childhood education in forest kindergarten education in Germany and Korea. It deals with differences in the understanding of education and the (educational) goals of the forest kindergarten pedagogy. In addition, the educational area of aesthetics in forest kindergartens in both countries is examined. This article presents the current state of research on aesthetic education in early childhood education in forest kindergartens. This is the first study that focuses on forest kindergartens and aesthetic education in an international and cross-cultural context. A written survey with mostly quantitative questions and some qualitative parts is conducted, in which both the parents (314) and the education experts (84) in Germany and South Korea were interviewed. The frequencies of the different statements were determined and presented graphically with Word clouds. The main result of this study is that the forest kindergarten pedagogy in Germany and Korea, despite different educational understandings and different cultures, has a lot in common, because the Koreans have taken over many aspects and attitudes from Germany. The educational field of aesthetics is explicitly more relevant in Germany, but the Korean experts are presenting many projects that have a close connection to the aesthetic education sector, without assigning them to this field. This includes especially traditional offers such as masquerade and calligraphy. The concluding consideration critically discusses the results and places them in the discourse of forest kindergarten pedagogy.

생태적 산지전용을 활용한 산림복지시설 조성 방안 연구 : 대전 나눔숲체험원 조성계획을 중심으로

Purpose: The desire to experience forests is increasing as urban residents have more leisure time due to increased income, the introduction of a five-day workweek, and economic leeway. The forms for forest welfare services are operated in the form of forest experience centers, forest kindergartens, forest campgrounds, and forest leisure sports facilities, and are created for the purpose of forest education and healing while serving as a local public goods. Method: This study will conduct a literature search within the last 5 years and research and organize terms and design guidelines through theoretical review. In addition, case studies are conducted, and the design content of the Daejeon Sharing Forest Experience Center is analyzed. Result: This study analyzes the “Daejeon Sharing Forest Experience Center Natural Recreation Forest Creation Plan” to which the concept of ecological mountain region conversion is applied, and proposes an alternative to the conservation of the forest environment and the space plan coexisting with humans in the creation of space using forest resources.

Forest kindergarten: fostering ecological cognition and executive function in preschoolers

ABSTRACT Forest learning has been encouraged globally in recent years as it regularly provides opportunities to interact with nature and one's own abilities. The contributions of forest and traditional kindergarten and home environment to children's ecological cognition and how ecological cognition relates to executive function (EF) is understudied. Therefore, this study evaluates the ecological cognition and EF of children from traditional and forest kindergartens along with home environment involvement in sustainability behavior. A total of 78 children, their teachers, and parents were recruited for this study. The children's ecological cognition and EF levels were tested using a series of tasks and short interviews. Home persuasion related to sustainability behavior was assessed by questionnaire. The analysis revealed that forest kindergarten is the main factor that is involved in children's ecological cognition and EF. The discussion outlines the trajectories and factors that delineated children's cognitive growth when sustainability was part of their education

Przestrzeń zabaw ryzykownych w przedszkolu leśnym

The subject of the qualitative research presented in this paper is risky play. Using the conclusions of the participant observation carried out in two forest kindergartens in Berlin, interviews with teachers and the analysis of documents, I try to answer the question of what factors are conducive to taking up risky play by children. I present the types of risky play that occur in forest kindergarten and a description of the material and social space that characterizes the institutions. The key issue in recognition is the teachers’ attitude to risky play. Children learn to manage risk, make decisions, solve problems, assess their own physical fitness, but taking such actions requires appropriate suport from adults.

A bird’s eye view: comparing young children’s play in Forest School in England with Forest Kindergarten in Denmark

ABSTRACT Forest School in England is the practice of young children playing outside, rooted in the outdoor kindergartens of Scandinavia and more especially Denmark. Using observation and semi-structured interviews with children and adults in two settings, this case study approach allowed an in-depth look at where, how and what children played in a Forest School in England compared with a Forest Kindergarten in Denmark. This study found that even though each case had contextual differences, with different conceptualisations of pedagogy and play, children were active in the process of their play. Choosing to play in familiar places, which resources they needed, on their own or with peers, but away from adults, a common theme to the play was play stories or narratives. Bounded by the two cases, and explored through play pedagogy, this study offers practitioners and pedagogues a unique insight into how children experience and operate in two similar yet different forest environments.

Tree Stories: Assessment Making as Relationally Respecting, Dynamically Listening with Care, and Inviting Celebratory Journeying

Through my recent Master of Education journey, I am becoming increasingly awake to the ways in which I value “place” when thinking of my autobiographical beginnings, teaching, learning, and assessment making alongside children. As a forest and nature kindergarten teacher in a K–6 elementary school, who is facing increasing class sizes, classroom complexity, parental anxieties, and children’s wide-awakeness to all these influences, I worry about early childhood development and the knowing that each of us, from an early age, holds embodied experiences which guide us and either nurture or hinder our development. I see the importance of co-creating environments to invite children, parents, and educators to think collaboratively, and emergently to come to learning and knowing and assessment making. Basso (1996) writes, “relationships to places are lived most often in the company of other people, and it is on these communal occasions – when places are sensed together – that native views of the physical world become accessible to strangers” (p. 109). We teach and learn in social contexts across time and in the world of formal education on landscapes called schools. However, my hope is for schools to be thought of in a broader context, which bends and sways as we ground ourselves in experiential pedagogies (Dewey, 1938). Pedagogies which are always in the midst and in the making. Narrative beginnings matter. With this thinking, we become awake to knowing that our collective approaches to the education of young children will significantly affect future leaders and the environment which sustains us. My current research puzzling for the purpose of this special issue is as follows: in what ways can land-based, place-based, emergent, and playful experiential learning approaches in school outdoor settings increase child, family, and teacher collaboration? What role might assessment making have in this collaboration and the child’s learning? Do the stories that children come to live and tell through this collaboration and their dynamic interaction with one another, their families and teachers, and more-than-human beings influence the lives they are making in the present in their early years of schooling i.e., K–3, and into their futures?

Attentive Allies: Landscape Architects as Facilitators to Promote Early Childhood Nature-Based Educational Programs

In a forest kindergarten context, young children can get boost on their level of physical activity, motor skills, social skills, pro-environmental behaviors, etc. through structured and/or unstructured nature-based educational programs. Most studies mentioned teachers, parents, and researchers as facilitators in the early childhood outdoor learning programs, while landscape architects were rarely considered. However, beyond just being involved in the design and construction of the physical environment, landscape architects can play a more profound role in the long run. This study aims to show that involving landscape architects as facilitators in the nature-based educational programs can benefit the programs in many ways and the effect can be long-lasting. The study is based on the 16 years of collaboration between Miyano-oka, a forest kindergarten, and a team of landscape architects from Takano Landscape Planning in Japan to conduct nature-based educational programs to preschoolers. It presents examples of programs in Miyano-oka and the strategies applied to develop them. In this project, landscape architects employed various design strategies to improve the existing programs and help develop new programs. Among those strategies, participatory design is the primary one. During both the renovation (from 2006 to 2008) and follow-up (from 2009 to now) phases, active participation and collaboration between designers and the educators help achieve the sustainable development of both the outdoor natural environment and educational programs.

Teachers’ Consideration for Children in a German Forest Kindergarten

Teachers’ Consideration for Children in a German Forest Kindergarten

Attempts to Place Forest Kindergarten in the History of Residents' Autonomy Movement

Attempts to Place Forest Kindergarten in the History of Residents' Autonomy Movement

The Psychomotor Development of Children Attending Forest Kindergartens in Poland

The article focuses on the topic of psychomotor development of children attending forest kindergartens. Other authors’ research findings, showing the influence of nature on the functioning of children, were presented as a background and a reference point to the results of my own research. The research carried out in the Czech Republic and Germany, whose results indicate the development of children from local forest kindergartens, are presented in greater detail. The central part of the article is the presentation of the resultsof own research concerning the psychomotor development of children attending forest kindergartens in Poland. The research demonstrates that children who attend the said forest kindergartens vary in terms of their psychomotor development, however, in most cases their development does not deviate from the indicative norm. Therefore, forest kindergartens create conditions for children’s proper psychomotor development.