Kindergarden visit at Bragdøya

10.03 (Tuesday)

My group had a visit in an outdoor kindergarden outside of Kristiansand. The island is called Bragdøya and we went there by ship.

 

Area

The area is part of the island. The kindergarden has a house at the coastline in Kristiansand but the children come out to their outside playground with their teachers every morning. They can use the whole island but they also have a part of it for their own use. There are no fences and no marks. The area is about 500m2 and includes parts of the coast, some rocks, a small stream, a fireplace and a hut. The hut is the only building but it is mostly used for storage. Most of the area is open, but there is also a part with trees, where the woods start. Apart from the building there are some playing buildings as a wooden house, a tipi and a kanu.

The children know, where the fences are, even if they are invisible. They are not allowed to leave the area on their own. But the area is still big enough so that the children can be out of visibility. The area is very diverse, the children can run, play with the water, climb on the rocks, use the trees and play on the flat ground. It offers a lot of possibilities for all kinds of plays.

 

 

 

Facts

Monday till Thursday from 9:00 till 14:30.

On Friday they are in the kindergarden indoors.

18 children, 3 teachers

Parents can chose that the children should be in the group that goes outdoors.

 

The role of the leader

There are only 2 rules for the children: Don’t leave the area and don’t go into the water of the stream (because it is too cold). It seemed like these rules were easy managed by the kids. The day is not planed or structured. Every Wednesday they go out for a walk over the island and the children learn something about the war and the buildings that are left over. On the other days the children can play whatever they like. There is no lunchtime, the children decide when they eat and drink. So the teachers are mostly watching, are around and help when they are needed. They try to watch the children, but not giving them a feeling of being controlled. When the play gets too dangerous or risky for other kids (playing with sticks as weapons) they interfere. Also when children are crying they go there and help. If they see, that a child is on their own, they try to include it. They don’t want children to be left out and everybody has to have a friend. On this day one of the teachers offered to make some Easter decoration and the children could go there and make it together with the teacher.

They do not use a lot of toys, most they have is stuff from the nature as wood, sticks and rocks. They have some shovels and toy cars the children can take out of the building. But they don’t use it a lot.

 

The role of the kids

The kids are playing self organised the most of the time. They find each other together and decide what to play. 6 children were playing on the rocks, they climbed up and threw things down and watched them falling. They played there for more then one hour. 4 girls played in the hammock and had a good laugh by pushing themselves. Some children played cooking and family in the tipi and some were climbing in the ropes. 2 girls found an earthworm and played with it. They tried to make it swim in the stream and probably killed it. But the teacher didn’t interfere. All of the children were motivated to play and they all had a lot of fun. Some decided to make the Easter decoration and some of them didn’t. We saw one child eating. 2 girls wanted to play the game 4 wins and the teacher helped them to understand the rules and played with them. They didn’t ask her to join, but they needed her for explaining.

All children wore warm and waterproof clothes and got really wet and dirty. But as this is normal it was no problem.

 

Motor skills:

–       running

–       climbing

–       balance

–       coordination

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Other skills:

–       self organisation

–       find a game

–       social skills

 

Risky play

A lot of the children did risky play. They jumped down from the rocks and went higher each time. They also encouraged each other to go even higher than before. In the hammock the girls were pushing each other to go faster and higher. Some children played with sticks and used them as weapons. They chased each other and tried to fear each other.