Our Natures & Forest School Nursery in Ascot has teamed up with the Woodland Trust to help plant over 350 trees across our nurseries. All About Children nurseries have all worked together to share these trees between us to help teach our children how important the environment is.
We have also encouraged our parents to get involved by helping us plant these in our nurseries and at their homes. This is just the first of many projects we will be undergoing to help teach our children about the importance of the environment.
Why is it so important for children to learn about the environment?
Children have a right to be involved in the world that they grow up in. It is so important to involve children in environmentalism as they are the future of the world – it is theirs to inherit and theirs to protect. Teaching children from a young age in an appropriate way supports their understanding of this role.
We teach children using simple activities that they can really relate to and can therefore support. This includes simple things such as recycling, not wasting food, seasonal menus and taking care of plants and animals as well as each other. We deliver this approach to all of our children across our settings.
At our Nature’s and Forest School in Ascot the older children in the Forest School are taught more in-depth about animal habitats and how to support these and have been involved in National Incentives such as the recent RSPB Bird Watch project.
How do we hope this project will help children learn about how tree planting can help protect the planet?
This project has enabled us to develop further activities and conversations with children about the importance of trees and their role in fighting climate change in supporting the UK’s carbon net-zero target. We deliver this at a simple level for children by talking about how trees produce the oxygen that we need and take in the carbon that we breathe out.
The children have been involved in making decisions about where the trees are being planted in our nursery gardens, with support from the staff, and have then been involved in planting the trees too. On an ongoing basis, they will be responsible for ensuring that the trees grow successfully and will be involved in activities such as measuring and recording the growth, noticing the changes with the seasons and comparing the new sapling trees with our well established mature trees that we have plenty of in the garden already. There are so many learning opportunities for the children with this project
We have also worked with the Woodland Trust along with our gardeners, staff teams and families to plan out where the trees were planted in the nursery grounds.
Please read our features in the Maidenhead Advertiser and the Bracknell News to find out more.