Area

The area that the children go to is in the woods and there are lots of natural things for them to play on such as trees and rocks but there was also so hand made things like swings and shelters.

Role of the leader

On the way from the pre-school building to the woods the teacher set various way points that the children should wait for her at. All of these were within sight of the last one so unless they ran in the wrong direction she would always be able to see them at all times.

Once the children had arrived at the play area in the woods the teacher reminded them of the other basic rules such as the boundaries of the play area and not to throw things at each other.

For the rest of the day she just kept the fire burning and wondered around making sure that they were all safe. There was only a little interaction between the teacher and the kids at the start where they sang a song and at lunchtime when they had some hotdogs that had been cooked on the fire.

Role of the kids and their activities

For most of the day it was free play. The kids didn’t bring any toys from the pre-school so they just used what they found in the woods. They would climb trees, chase each other and just generally mess around. They were intrinsically motivated to do this as they didn’t need to be told and they never seemed to get bored.

They learnt about their own boundaries by trying and failing. For example they knew how high they could climb in a tree before it became too scary for them.