Woods and Waves Outdoor Learning
3941 Point Grey Road V6R 1B5 Vancouver, BC, Canada

Ponds, forest baseball (snappier than base-spruce-cone-ball), secret spots, a lot of climbing, pie making, ramps, mud, sticks, sharing laughs and a little snow/sleet/hail, another week in the books at our ever changing classroom. #1000hoursoutside #learnplaygrow #unstructuredplay #learnthroughplay #playeveryday #forestschool #yvrmoms #kitsilano #kits #jerichobeach #kitsilanomoms #kidsoutdoors #reggiooutdoors #montessorioutdoors #vancouvermom #vancouvermoms #reggioinspired #montessori #kidswhoexplore #dailyhivevan #dailyhivevancouver #runwildmychild

At Woods and Waves the children leave the more traditional playgrounds for other days and take advantage of what we find on our adventures to create our own. #1000hoursoutside #learnplaygrow #unstructuredplay #playeveryday #forestschool #yvrmoms #kitsilano #kits #jerichobeach #reggio #kitsilanomoms #kidsoutdoors #riskyplay #montessori #learnthroughplay #learnoutdoors #vancouvermom #naturesplayground #runwildmychild

When a classmate arrived and asked to go fishing it was only a matter of time before everyone else was on board. Hunting for the right stick, measuring and cutting the string, finding the best fishing spot and trying out new bait (yes that’s a spatula) were all part of the play. @twigsoutdoors ... #1000hoursoutside #learnplaygrow #unstructuredplay #playeveryday #forestschool #yvrmoms #kitsilano #kits #jerichobeach #reggio #kitsilanomoms #kidsoutdoors #riskyplay #learnthroughplay #learnoutdoors #vancouvermom

Board boat, get comfy, enjoy the view and then.abandon ship and get on the life raft, if there is room. With play, particularly unstructured play, there is no right or wrong answer, no correct direction to go, no end goal and no adults telling the children what they need to be learning. The children came up with the story entirely by themselves and were the narrators of their own play story. We never did discover what happened to the boat but everyone made it back to shore... in a safe and orderly fashion. #1000hoursoutside #learnplaygrow #unstructuredplay #playeveryday #forestschool #yvrmoms #kitsilano #kits #jerichobeach #kitsilanomoms #kidsoutdoors #riskyplay #learnthroughplay #learnoutdoors

An often overlooked benefit of children playing and learning outdoors is that it provides them with the opportunity to move! With classroom learning being pushed down into the early years and screen time on the rise it is no surprise that sedentary behaviour (in other words little to no movement of the body) is on the increase. A moving child is a learning child so please, get outdoors to the real world. Years of learning at a desk can wait for now. ... #outdoorplay #toddlersoutdoors #outdoorpreschool #learnplayeveryday #outdoordaycare #learnthroughplay #keepmoving #learnthroughmovement #jerichobeach #beachchild

With heavy rain at the start of class, we watched as the wind slowly pushed the clouds west revealing the sun (nice to see you again) and a fleeting rainbow. What a beautiful way to round of a particularly wet November. #playoutdoors #vancouverrainbow #learningthroughplay #learnoutside #jerichobeach #outdoortoddler #outdoorpreschool #outdoornursery #outdoorplay #childrenoutdoors

Trying and testing @twigsoutdoors activities last week, balancing leaves (AKA How Many Steps?) on this occasion. Head over to Twigs for ideas and inspiration to learn, play and grow outdoors with your little ones. #outdoorplay #learnoutdoors #learningthroughplay #twigs #1000hoursoutside #outdoorschool #outdoorvancouver #vancouveradventures

This week we were mainly: Rescuing boats stuck at sea, exploring and balancing on some new logs brought in by the king tide, creating dams on the beach, climbing rock mountain, exploring a new pond formed from by the park workers removing invasive plants, unblocking the tunnel, fishing and finishing off with a classic round of hide and seek. How was your week? ... #outdoorvancouver #learnthroughplay #outdoortoddlers #learnplaygrow #outdoordaycare #outdoorpreschool #1000hoursoutside

Flexible and unstructured learning in one photo. Given the ever-changing natural landscape that we are fortunate to call our classroom our days can go in many different ways. One of our approaches is to revisit the same area regularly so that children become attached to their surroundings and become more in-tune with the changes that the seasons bring. These observed changes are not always nature related as we often encounter human-made changes, both positive and negative. Ev...ery change is a conversation starter and can take our day and play in many directions. This photo of us around a trailer may, on face value, not appear to have much obvious teaching moments attached to it. However a surprise encounter with a truck that has scoopers on the back in a spot where there is not usually trucks with scoopers on their back led to a day’s worth of speculation, investigation and play. Scheduled activities and checkboxes can wait, for now, we are too curious for that, the real world is out there. #learnplaygrow #learnoutdoors #toddlersoutdoors #outdoorplay #learnthroughplay #kidswhoexplore #runwildmychild #twigs #1000hoursoutside #vancouverparents