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Outdoor focus for Carlin Strong Start

For many people childhood memories involve the outdoors – on a bike, in the sandbox, with sidewalk chalk on pavement.

For many people childhood memories involve the outdoors – on a bike, in the sandbox, with sidewalk chalk on pavement. The outdoors provided endless materials for creative opportunities. The StrongStart Outreach program’s new location, Carlin Elementary, will be a pilot program for “natural play” which supports creative and open ended play with natural materials and limited plastic.

“The sad reality is we’re living in this digital world, and there’s a lot of positive things about technology but what we’re noticing is a lot of families, and kids especially, are going way over and spending so much time in front of the screen that they’re having difficulty just developing those social and emotional skills,” said Jennifer Findlay, early learning co-ordinator for School District #83.

StrongStart is a provincial-wide program that provides play-based learning opportunities for children newborn to five years old and their parents or caregivers. The StrongStart outreach program offers the opportunity for families in rural communities to benefit from StrongStart.

Carlin Elementary is the newest addition to the Outreach program after community participation in early learning activities such as North Shuswap Community Resources Association’s swimming lessons and the Mother Goose early learning program.

“We knew that there was definitely a need out there for families that were wanting some early learning programs,” Findlay said.

With the blank canvas of a classroom at Carlin, Findlay has been working closely with Bridgitte Alomes, CEO of Natural Pod, to create a natural play space that encourages imaginative play. With the environment considered a teacher, materials will be natural such as wood blocks, fabric, wool, rocks. Natural play helps to develop sensory exploration in addition to creativity and imagination.

By providing simplistic toys children have the opportunity to explore the possibilities of it rather than the purpose being straight forward.

“In Fletcher Park playground there’s this counter space and kids will use pine cones and rocks and be selling their eggs or ice cream cones,” Findlay says. “They make it up and it’s just all that more creative than the plastic stuff they’re given.”

Carlin provided the perfect opportunity to create a natural play space from scratch, but Findlay hopes to incorporate it into the other StrongStart programs.

For the 2013/2014 school  year, StrongStart will run for three hours five days a week at Salmon Arm West Elementary, Downtown Activity Centre, MV Beattie Elementary, Highland Park Elementary and Parkview Elementary. The StrongStart Outreach program will run at Carlin on Mondays, Sorrento Elementary on Tuesdays, Falkland Elementary on Wednesdays and Fridays and at North Shuswap Elementary on Thursdays.