Fascination

Planning should be joyful. We have all been there, locked away in a room, staring at a screen, trying to think of activities to put onto a planning document. What if there was another way? Would you embrace joyful planning and documentation? Luckily, the pages between these covers contain the keys to the confidence you are seeking to fully explore this learning journey, including quick to access visual mind maps and grids full of practical strategies to help children share what they know, question what they don't know, and make a plan to find the answer in a playful inquiry. The pages share the knowledge and skills you need to feel confident following a child-led inquiry around a fascination of crafting things from wood and exploring wood whittling and woodworking while also providing blank pages for you to make your own notes. Claire's Floorbook® approach will help your voice and the voices of the children you work with become interwoven to create a truly enjoyable and awe-inspiring program. An emergent curriculum comes from children's fascination with the world around them, especially through encounters with materials such as wood, sticks, and leaves. If you are new to this style of emergent curriculum, the journal style encourages you to reflect on what you do, to record children's ideas that could influence your program over several years. There are sections around the adult role, what children understand about wood, how to assess risk, and how to use two ways of approaching the curriculum, with both approaches being seen in practice within the case studies as children can be seen being involved in shared sustained thinking as they plan and talk about their projects. The Fascination Series is a way of starting to reveal the opportunities for children to learn with nature and not just about it by connecting to it through handling and using it. When a child understands the gift of materials such as wood, its source and sustainability becomes more important. This mind set stays beyond the inquiry to be a lifelong way of thinking about the planet. Planning can be joyful, so open the book and let's get started.

We all need time to play in puddles. It is a true delight to be on a walk and discover a puddle and explore how deep and wide it is, as well as how big a splash it makes. Puddles are one of the most wonderful play materials that nature can provide. It is wonderful to see children meet a puddle for the first time and observe it with such awe and wonder. The question for us as practitioners and educators is: how do we use something as simple as a puddle to develop complex learning? This series of curriculum and nature-based planning journals are designed to provide both a curriculum framework and pages to complete that allow room for the development of child-led inquiries. Understanding the learning when we are outside can be a challenge. This series of books provides the support you need to create high quality programs that all of your team can engage with. Ideas stem from case studies and give planning from two angles. The first is as a context for child-led learning, such as the exploration of puddles. The second is planning lessons about academic subjects to ensure breadth and balance in your program. The Fascination Series is a way of starting to reveal the opportunities for children to learn with nature, not about it, by not just sitting in it, but by connecting to it. They will take messages from it and start to ponder their significance in terms of the larger issues that face us in modern society, such as sustainability. Enjoy the stories of how children have explored puddles gathered through Claire's world renowned Floorbook® documentation and start to see the huge amount of learning that takes place in the process of learning with nature.