And if you look really closely you might see some children...

10th of March and we are on the boat to a mysterious island called Bragdøya. Our objective – observe children play in a local outdoor kindergarten. We got totally confused when our teacher Len left us on our own. He accompanied us to the boat and after all of us got onto this boat we just saw him waving goodbye from the jetty. After we landed onto Randøya we found our way to the kindergarten. Well, basically the whole island was one huge playground for the kids. Teachers welcomed us but they didn’t seem to to have been expecting us neither did the children. They were looking at us with large scared eyes from a back of their teachers – like little wild creatures as if we were some kind of scary aliens. It’s easy to understand them, while there were quite a few of us – eleven big-ass outlanders who didn’t spoke norwegian. As we didn’t want to scare them too much, most of us headed to explore the island – the amazing playground provided to these children by Mother Nature.

This island is huge! We made a big lap and returned to the place were most of the children were. This time as we approached in more little groups kids didn’t seem to be afraid of us anymore. If any of us made some effort to entertain them they fell in love with us instantly, specially Jochen – this guy just has a gift with children.

For the rest of our stay we talked with children teachers and observed children’s play. Teachers did not interfere in their play, they just peacefully observed them letting these children to explore the world and their boundaries with their own eyes.

As I asked a teacher about the worst case scenario in regard to these “risky plays” he answered that only once one girl had broken her arm after falling out of a tree. We both agreed that that is a fair risk compared to the great outcome that these children gain using Nature as their playground and it barely ever happens. Children get a chance to learn the lessons of our world and life by heart, by doing. That is more powerful than thousand verbal restrictions and warnings

I am happy to know that these kindergartens are becoming more and more popular in Lithuania.