Green makes school

So the cliche goes, there are lots of things Germany does well; public transport, sausages, compound nouns... actually all these things are true, but I've been discovering that in Berlin and Hamburg there are some other things that are done well; challenging, exciting and sustainable play provision for children and young people.
I recently spent a week in Hamburg and Berlin with a study tour for play professionals co-ordinated by ip-dip.com and www.meynellgames.org. The tour took us to scrapstores, adventure playgrounds, public parks and playspaces, community provision, waldkindergarten and green school playgrounds. On Thursday we spent the day looking at school play ares in Berlin in the company of Manfred from Grün macht Schule; www.gruen-macht-schule.de.

Grün macht Schule is an organisation that exists as a collaboration between educationalists and landscape architects, It was set up as an advice centre for schools with funding from the City of Berlin that came through both the Education and Environment funding streams. In Berlin there are 850 schools. Grün macht schule have initiated projects with 500 schools of which 80/90 have been completed to date. We visited three of their projects at Galilei school, Neuemark school and Spreewald school.One of things that stands out with the three play areas are the similarities and the differences. There was definitely a similar feel to all three play areas; the use of dense shrubbery planting to create different spaces and places to hide, the use of light gravelly sand as a substrate and safety surface and the mixture of play structures, or 'play machines' in and amongst planting, recycled materials and natural elements. But the differences were the more striking, each one had bespoke elements, often designed and created with the chidlren and young people, artwork, sculptures and mosaics abounded making the places feel exciting to explore and distinctive. 

Carvings on upright peeled logs in Galelei School courtyard

Galilei School is in former West Berlin, but only 300m from Checkpoint Charlie which formarly was the only crossing point between both parts of the city. Here they undertook workshops with children and teachers to inform the architects. Interestingly there was no money from the school or funding identified initially and for Manfred this is an important part of setting the expectation with the school.  

Climbing and jumping wall, children worked with a stonemason to realise their designs. 

German school currently close at lunchtime, so from 2pm this is all open to the public. They still have to  close it in the evening because of  concerns about people in the space misusing drugs and alcohol. we ask about how the teachers supervise this area, this si always one of the main concerns from teachers when they are looking to transform their outdoor spaces to be more complex and have more 'hiding places'  The solution that Grün macht Schule suggests is really common sense. "Even if you can see an accident happen you cannot prevent it. It's better that a teacher stays in one place, where the children know where they will be." 

Our group wanders down the dry creek bed. When it rains the water  fills a a basin that is then pumped down the creek .

Neuemark primary school had a Grün macht schule project in 2004. The school has an 80% Turkish population and 5% German. The change to all day schooling which is being piloted in this part of Berlin has changed the nature of the way the play area is used. The school has breaks 3 times during the day with 15 mins each break as well as a lunch break.

During play times there are five teachers supervising the area, one teacher in every region, The interesting thing about the changes to all day school is that the schools are recognising the loss of children's free time , So in this school they also use the outside space for free time during the school day and when there are one or maybe two teachers supervising the area. Then the teachers stay in one spot and the children have to be where they can see that teacher. 

Lots of recycled bricks went into making the paved areas

  We ask about the concept of loose parts, could there be some of the elements of design that are not fixed down? Manfred and Georg struggle to find the German word for this which is 'bewegungsbaustelle' moving construction site- for kids. The concept is known here but features mostly in kindergartens. We ask Manfred if it would be better to have some of the poles and rocks not fixed but he recognises that it is a compromise and the parents and the schools aren't ready for it.

Manfred described some of the changes. "Before this was a playground only for boys, now less aggressive; groups have spaces and it is more quiet." The play area used to be dominated by football and the girls and other children had no spaces to play. Now there are lots of areas available including an area for football and there are spaces for groups to be together. There is also lots of evidence of children being in and amongst the bushes. Anti social behaviour has lessened and the school has found there are more smaller accidents but less larger ones.

One of the girls we talked to said her favourite thing to play was hide and seek, her favourite place to play was on these swings. 

The third play area we visit, adjacent to Spreewald school  has a 'play machine' that is unlike any other I have ever seen. We nickname it 'the rubber world'. The play area is in a landscaped park with stone amphitheatre and sculptures made by children and young people. There are few play structures but the dominating structure is a large frame from which hangs undulating rubber sheets and hanging rubber tiles. It is fascinating to watch the children at play on it we can't resist testing  it out and find it is a really challenging and flexible piece of equipment.

The play area is in a public park but the school children are all playing on it because they use the public park as their playground. A teacher sits by a pile of coats doing a suduko puzzle and chatting with some of the children who are taking a rest but otherwise the children are playing around the park. 

This is really fascinating to observe, five boys are running and catching each other, they jump to avoid collision with a young man you sits with his speakers in his ears and his head on his knees. Two boys are fighting with sticks, utterly absorbed in the running battle that consumes them. An older lady sits in her sunbathing outfit, catching the warm April sunshine. This is a fascinating example of the integration of public space and school play areas. The area was developed by and with the school for them to use, but is also a public space.

Annie burns rubber!

Manfred tells us that there has been a lobby from playground companies for plastic equipment to be used in Grün macht Schule projects but For Manfred it is important that kids in the city have natural experiences. They are now working with kindergartens to develop play spaces. They see that by starting in early childhood these spaces help children develop. Manfred talks of the importance of learning to fall correctly, by falling over a lot when you are young and  the importance of being exposed to sap and pollen to build up resistance.Their organisation has been able to fit with the external agenda on establishing the balance of ecology in the city, There used to be lots of money for this so lots of new play areas developed. But now for 3 years there has only been money for small projects. In Manfred's view money needs to come from society instead and for this it is critically important that parents are on board. If we came back in 5 years he guess times there would be another 5% of schools with this sort of space.

One of the things that has happened in the time when the project was developing lots of school grounds is that there has been lots of work been put in to work closely with the insurance department,. They see the importance of involving teachers, parents, to create something that is challenging but that doesn't go too far. Each project builds on previous ones and builds up the ideas with decision makers, children and parents about what is possible. One thing they have found is that here are more accidents. But critically there are more smaller accidents rather than more bad accidents. Insurance companies see that this is better and cheaper and things are changing across the city in favour of this sort of landscaping. It is this that is the main point i take away from our visits. This same process is happening in the UK. Projects are being inspired by the work of Grun Macht Schule and organisations like them and   working to create the same level of influence that has taken place in Berlin. 

Grounds for Learning video of playgrounds in Berlin here: http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/video/g/video_tcm4665303.asp

Read my journal from Hamburg and Berlin here:
Mobily trip journal

Nature transforms an egg..... or how to make green eggs.

This is one of those things that I have been wanting to try for a while. I was invited to join a school's  staff Easter egg decorating competition. So I took the opportunity to dye some eggs using natural materials.

In my mind, I would have time to transform the eggs into an entire forest complete with kids climbing little wooden trunks that i would carve for the eggs (I am working on a Forest school project at the school). In reality I was delivering a training course all week that meant I didn't even have time to get to the post office let alone carve wooden tree trunks etc etc... 

But this does mean I have made an Easter craft, early enough to post a blog about it in time for other people to do the same thing for this Easter. I had so much fun researching and experimenting and I hope you are tempted to have a go too.

I wanted a leafy effect on the eggs, looking around the kitchen for something I could use as a leaf shape (without going into the garden with a torch) I thought coriander leaves would work perfectly. My herbs are a great source of indoor leafage, which is why my bow drill fire lighting set smells vaguely of basil!

The leaves stuck to the eggs best when they were both slightly damp, then some bits of old stocking were bound around the egg with elastic bands to keep the leaves in place.

My first experiment was with onion skins from white onions. I managed to get enough skins by raiding the onion display at the supermarket and filling a bag full. I chose pale coloured eggs too, (it was a this point that my partner decided he would go and do the rest of the shopping and leave me to raiding onions skins and swapping eggs in the boxes to get all pale coloured ones) 

I boiled the skins until the colour got quite strong. Then I added a splash of white vinegar and the eggs and boiled them for ten minutes. My reasoning was if it didn't work then we could still eat the eggs. 

They worked beautifully  though. They remind me of the patterns you get from sun print paper or cyanotypes. This whetted my appetite for more experimentation. I tried red cabbage next, boiling the cabbage until the water became strongly coloured then adding the eggs and vinegar. I'm not sure if the vinegar is entirely unnecessary, It makes a good acid environment and i know from working with natural dyes on cloth that some natural dyes work well in an acid environment and it seemed to work the first time so I added a splash to this batch too. 

After 10 minutes the eggs didn't seem to have changed colour so I just left them in there. Fixing the leaves and the tights onto the eggs was quite fiddly so I didn't mind the time until the next batch. After quite a long time, maybe 35-40 minutes (and regular checks) the blue colour had finally struck! It was worth waiting for as the beautiful blue reminded me of robin or blackbird eggs. The colour didn't seem quite as 'robust as the brown and I had to be careful handling these as the colour seemed to rub off, this wasn't the case when they were fully cooled so it seems almost like the colour has to set. 

But for my idea for the competition I really wanted green. Trees are green, so my eggs should be green. And also I had two lovely pans full of stinky sludge, one that made blue and one that made yellowy brown. I know if I had been doing this with a group of kids that they would have started mixing up concoctions and I can't fault a good concoction. I added the two pans together, lobbed in a bit of stale tumeric for good measure and boiled the eggs in it for a good half hour. It smelt pretty strong ( a bit like cooking up chutney) and seethed in a satisfying way that suggests this is one of those crafts that would appeal to children who like making putrid potions and yet would produce something that would please their mums! 

It did produce a green, but a sort of light sagey slightly sludgey green which was good enough for me. Before I ran out of eggs I tried some in the water that comes with beetroot but that didn't seem strong enough. But if you want to experiment I found this list of suggested natural things to dye eggs with on http://chemistry.about.com/od/holidayhowtos/a/eastereggdyes.htm

Lavender	Small Quantity of Purple Grape Juice Violet Blossoms plus 2 tsp Lemon Juice Red Zinger Tea
Violet Blue	Violet Blossoms Small Quantity of Red Onions Skins (boiled) Hibiscus Tea Red Wine
Blue	Canned Blueberries Red Cabbage Leaves (boiled) Purple Grape Juice
Green	Spinach Leaves (boiled) Liquid Chlorophyll
Greenish Yellow	Yellow Delicious Apple Peels (boiled)
Yellow	Orange or Lemon Peels (boiled) Carrot Tops (boiled) Celery Seed (boiled) Ground Cumin (boiled) Ground Turmeric (boiled) Chamomile Tea Green Tea
Golden Brown	Dill Seeds
Brown	Strong Coffee Instant Coffee Black Walnut Shells (boiled) Black Tea
Orange	Yellow Onion Skins (boiled) Cooked Carrots Chili Powder Paprika
Pink	Beetroot Cranberries or Juice Raspberries Red Grape Juice Juice from Pickled Beets
Red	Lots of Red Onions Skins (boiled) Canned Cherries with Juice Pomegranate Juice Raspberries

I could have carried on experimenting for longer but I had run out of eggs. I rubbed a little bit of cooking oil onto the shells to make them shiny and they are looking very festive in a bowl on my table. I never did get them to the competition. 

Comfort-Challenge-Fear

"So, what makes you feel comfortable?"
This was the question I asked a group of seven to nine year olds this week. We were in the woods for the first session of our Forest School sessions and I wanted to help focus them on what they would be doing over the next few weeks. Their answers were the sort of this you would expect, sitting on the sofa, laying in bed, being wrapped up in a cozy blanket. We feel comfortable when we are doing things that are easy and we have done them before. But that isn't why children take part in Forest Schools.

Forest School programmes are about more than spending time in the woods and exploring. They are also about encouraging children's motivation and helping to develop positive attitudes, stretching the children and helping them realise their skills. These things just don't happen when you stay in your comfort zone.

Challenge: moving out of your comfort zone
 but still being able to function

This was how I explained to the group; we would be coming to the woods for Forest School and this is to challenge them, to try new things and for them to find out things they didn't know they could do. It is important for the children to be challenged but at the same time making sure they don't feel pushed too far.

I've been thinking about this model for a while, it is in common parlance in adventure activity circles and leadership management but I don't normally share this sort of thinking directly with the children. I was talking with a friend Kirsty who is a youthworker about how she shares models like this with the young people and this is so simple I knew the seven to nine year olds could get it too. So we laid out the different elements and talked about how important it is to move out of your comfort zone. They got it straight away and I saw lots of self motivated behaviour.

Comfort zones are such a personal individual thing and this is where the most important challenge for these children will come from. The challenge they set themselves.

Let ME play!

Last week a series of posters were doing the rounds, originated from Explorations Early Learning: http://www.explorationsearlylearning.com/shop5/posters.html

This one really caught the imagination of a number of people on facebook:

It's great isn't it! It speaks to that part of us that knows that young children need to play and explore, it shows a boy engaged with his world. It also spoke to the adult who still feels like this. 

Because yes, there are still adults who feel like this.

All kudos must be given to Marc Armitage http://www.marc-armitage.eu/ who started the idea of remaking the poster for yourself and the other play and Early Years professionals who joined in. http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.280106425388257.66030.100001667062153&type=3

I love the idea that adults still see themselves as playful beings. How do you play?

Yes, and... Play and learning.

Sometimes I feel like describing ‘play’ is like drawing the wind. You can recognise it, you know what it looks and feels like, but it is somehow nebulous and hard to pin down. I have been working in the field of play and playwork for nearly fifteen years and yet I have still to find just one way to describe what play is. I love the fact that all you need is a handful of playworkers (and maybe a bottle of something) and ask, “What is play?” and they’ll be at it for hours!

A few weeks ago My friend Kirsty and I delivered a workshop for the Institute of Outdoor Learning on playfulness and flow states. We were exploring how an understanding of theories can help learners in a range of environments Looking for 

"Play' is a term employed in psychology and ethology to describe to a range of voluntary, intrinsically motivated activities normally associated with recreational pleasure and enjoyment”¹

Which sums up the feeling we were trying to convey through our workshop, that children and young people get so much out of being able to direct their activities into something that holds their involvement, that it is important for children and adults too to be allowed to play. In recent years I have been doing more work in formal learning environments and I really see the value of the spirit of playfulness I bring to the work I do. The aspect of play or playfulness that really appeals to me, especially when I was considering how it motivates and engages learners, is the state of immersion and engagement that a child at play can enter, when the real world is lost to them and they understand totally what the rules are. Even if there are other agendas that the teachers or facilitators are trying to manage, there are still benefits to following the children into that zone, that place of immersion.

I heard a comedian talking about improvisational comedy and  he was saying how improv can be made to work if the people taking part in it follow the rule of “Yes! and....” basically, if you take whatever is offered and try to build on then you get to a more interesting, and in their case funny and surreal, place. That really strikes a chord! I know from my own teaching, training and playing that when something comes up from the group you have two choices, one is to try and shut it down and bring people back. The other is to accept what is offered, “Yes! and....” to go with the new direction. Let things come back to the starting point naturally and allow people feel more included and involved with what they are learning. Even when there is a very specific outcome you can still get to the same end point by following the meanders that include other people’s ideas rather than sticking only with your own route.

Playfulness for me is about being responsive and flexible, embracing the unpredictable nature of the world and the people in it. What do play and playfulness mean to you?