Risky Play and Safety Outdoors
Guest Presenter: Anne Stires
Present: Landere Naisbitt, Caylin Gans, Emily Calhoun, Johanna Booth-Miner, Dave Booth-Miner, Mindy Beltramo, Jen Macdonald, Karen Dar, Jen , Laura Mamarelli, Anne Stires, Deirdre Brotherson, Amy Butler, Liza Lowe
Meeting Notes:
*Anne Stires - Site and Risk-Benefit Assessments
Whether it’s forest or several acres or a flag pole, each of us has a site we can consider.
Lander - currently working at a small, rural school: concerns because there’s quite a large river, flat woods, a lot of mushrooms, thick/dense main woods, the river is a concern (ages K-1st grade).
Emily - Live and Learn: large field, tent for a shelter, open field, large fire pit, semi-maintained trails in the woods… One site = pond and travel to the edge of the pond.
Anne Stires: whole plate - 25 acres vs. one small slice, one site = pond area or fire pit (lead teacher and support teacher could do this together, information from the students or a wonderful volunteer who can come and help out). A site might be more in a risk category… existing control measure might be teaching children where the edge of the river is or maybe you have a fence (depending on state regulations).
Mindy - loose parts that children are using in the sites.
Anne - It’s pretty obvious what you need to do with a site assessments… you just need to do it, which can be the challenging part! The goal is that during every season, at least once, and then after every storm you go out and conduct a site assessment. For those who are just starting the forms now exists (they didn’t 9 years ago)… put them into practice! Every season, once a month to once every other month… make a goal for how you’re going to complete the site assessment.
Claire Warden: Fascination of Fire and Fascination of Earth, at the back of the book you’ll find a Benefit Risk Assessment. At Juniper Hill we took what Claire Warden had in the back of her books and we broke it into 4 quadrants… what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. We wanted to think about how those things are connected to risk. At the beginning of the school year we worked with parents and grandparents to show them the risk-benefit assessment binder - ones that children have done and ones that teachers have done. They are able to see that we have assessed each site (barefoot walking to climbing high to stone wall ambling to fire). You might start with sticks… pond exploration… etc. We put this up on a huge wipe board or pieces of paper and broke it down. We can do this with children and talk about it as empowerment vs. fear. The children take this to heart… “I can learn how big I am because I do this!” Then the teachers can take it to the next step and unpack the learning that is happening.
Mindy - This will be a new practice for us as a new program. Amphibian forest: children started using the log as a balance beam. “What would it be like if you took your boots off?” Benefit, they could feel the log. They said, “well it works well with our socks, but what if we did it barefoot?” I can see where this could be really beneficial when you get a parent who is asking, why would let me child do x, y or z.
Anne - If the children jump into a risky activity you can back them up and take the time to go through the assessment and have a discussion together. Children don’t start the school year with this. We start every school year with scaffolding of site assessments and by this time of year children are tree climbing, using sticks, barefoot walking, and using shovels… then we add as we move through the school year and by October we’re doing fire.
At the beginning of the year we hold a mandator, all school open house/orientation. Teachers take on stations (4 stations: fire with Kelly Kettle, tree climbing, whittling/potato peeler, other tools) and we have a round robin. 2 hrs. total.
→ Wipe boards with the benefits of the activities (photos linked individually below)
Welcome - Risk - Books - Fire - Climbing - Carving - Sawing & Hammering
Caylin - we had a dialogue with the children (school age group who was used to being told what to do). It took months to get them to a place where they would go through the process themselves. Took a while to practice this skill of getting in the mainframe of considering the risks. Previously children were used to having the adults tell them what to do.
Anne - We have 4 Rules for tree climbing: (which are written in our protocols)
Ask to climb.
Get in and out of the tree themselves.
Climbing on branches that are the size of their wrist or bigger.
Has to be alive or approved by a teacher.
(At the beginning of the year… climbing only as high as a teacher can reach.)
→ At Juniper Hill we follow - one risk, one teacher
→ As educators we have intuition in our bellies for a reason, pay attention to your gut and be in dialogue about this! I recommend having on-going conversations with your staff/co-workers… letting each other know where you are.
→ Hazard/Level of Risk/Precaution/Revised Risk Level
When we write them down it’s an unpacking process and when we do it with team members it’s much more beneficial!
Consider barefoot walking: sharp sticks, rocks, poison ivy, broken glass, barbed wire, ground wasps), level of control so that you can manipulate the situation, if you’re still in the high zone or medium zone then you don’t do the activity.
Start small with one activity! Anything that has hazards involved in it and your gut says “huh”…
→ tick born illnesses and things children are allergic to are important to consider
Questions/Comments
Thank you Anne because taking time to go over this helps so that I might actually do it!
Get a grant to hire someone to document and write protocols.
Prescott Farm - assessment team, teachers are involved in that… we assess as we go… one of my teachers got stung on the first day of school, ground wasps are a big one!
Wilderness First Aid and anaphylaxis first aid and water safety.
**Reminder that Anne teaches the Risk Management for Nature-based Early Childhood (EDP5620) at Antioch on July 13-17, 2020!
Resources:
Poison Ivy ID Guide - Landere Naisbitt, Tracks Forest School & Outdoor Learning
Our Proud Heritage: Outdoor Play is Essential to Whole Child Development
Risky and Adventure in Early Years Outdoor Play: Learning from Forest Schools - Sara Knight
Fascination of Fire: Charcoal - Claire Warden
Fascination of Earth: Wood Whittling - Claire Warden
Fascination of Water: Puddles - Claire Warden
Nature-based Preschool Professional Practice Guidebook (pgs. 47-61): Safety
Nature Preschools and Forest Kindergarten: The Handbook for Outdoor Learning (Chapter 7 - The Risks and Benefits of Nature Play, pgs. 137-157)
Recording of this meeting can be found HERE!
