“A Positive Challenge”

I was excited and nervous mixed feeling when I started the course.That was why Ichose a monkey (person) looking at a butterfly and half coloured a person looked worried holding onto a branch tightly. I was not sure what to do to complete the course and that made me feel some pressure.

Most of the practical parts were fun and exciting to learn. I basically loved nature and was interested to learn more about it. So major part I enjoyed this learning journey. Then little bit I felt it was challenging. It was a good thing. I found out it was a positive challenge.

It was good balance that gaining knowledge using of assignments and some practicalreal experience assignments.

Evaluating research article gave me an opportunity to deepen the knowledge about Bush Kinder and it was meaningful why we do Bush Kinder. All the benefits and fantastic principles / ethos of Bush Kinder were really meaningful to me. I am excited to read an article that my work mate recommended to read as well.

I never thought I will deeply relate to sustainability by conserving bushland myself before but now I can picture myself doing it with children. I have been trying zero waste but this was from different perspective of sustainability. I was imagining conserving bushland was a job for someone else but not me before this learning journey. Now I am so happy to be part of it.

Identifying Flora brought my interests back again. It is great that is the part of sustainability.

When my children were little, we went for a walk, taking “wild plants of Greater Brisbane” (Queensland Museum Guide) with us to identify some plants. We only identified obvious ones. It never extended to eucalypt identification but now I feel I would like to extend my knowledge to it. On the other day, I was looking up gum trees (They were so tall and hard to see the leaves and gumnuts), a child asked me what I was doing. I told her I was trying to find out what type of tree it was. Then I thought I probably could do this with children.

I should carefully observe falling leaves, branches and gumnuts throughout a year. This would be fun. I visited Brisbane Mt Coot-tha Botanic Garden for further study this summer holiday with my children. We went there last holiday as well. We did find out that many of the plants there had name tags. It’s a lovely place to visit. They have library as well which I haven’t visited yet.

They must hold books about all the different plants. I am all excited for my further study in many different ways.

Learning about all the safety was one of the most important part of the Forest School Learning. My memory was not perfect and I relied on the photos I took and asked workmates. Unit 3 Task 3 helped me to discuss about safety among the team and it was really good opportunity to keep us learning. Something we know in our head quite often does not come out naturally unless we practice. It is like First Aid practise. I felt it was important to repeat our practice to build our confidence especially for tool use. On the other hand I have been making fire with real wood for so long, I felt I probably over confident about it and little bit careless for safety. Then this practice made me aware of checking each step of the safety process.

These practices were good in different ways. I just watched a TV program about children’s education which talked about children under five should be playing outside a lot, make sure we listened to them, give them opportunities to think and talk (ask appropriate questions.). This all can cover with this

Bush Kinder Programme. I can not wait to talk with new parents about our Bush Kinder.

At the end of this official training, (my learning journey will still continue though) I build more confidence and motivation on the learning. I felt bit sad to finish this official training course to be honest.

I try to think this is just the beginning and enjoy the journey and more of the learning opportunities. Thank you so much Chris. It was the fantastic learning opportunity and the fabulous journey.