Growing Roots Forest Play

05/20/2026

Did you know that our own Ms. Gisele is a Master Beekeeper? 🐝
You might have noticed she’s been missing from our Forest School classes this week - she’s been at Spruce Meadows teaching over 1,300 children over 9 days all about bees and the important role they play in our ecosystems.
At Growing Roots, caring for the land starts with understanding our connection to it. From watching bees visit spring flowers to wondering how plants grow, children build relationships with the tiny creatures that help our world thrive.
This World Bee Day, we’re celebrating bees and the people helping the next generation learn to love and protect them. 🌼🐝

05/13/2026

Summer vibes are here ☀️

We can’t wait for the adventures and memory-making to begin: campfires, playing in the creek, muddy boots, new friendships, and long days spent exploring outdoors.

Summer camp spots are still available — register your wee one(s) to join the adventure 👉 https://bit.ly/growingrootssummer26

05/08/2026

Look who I found at the Outdoor Learning Conference in Banff today!
A major theme so far is fostering our connection with the Earth as kinship rather than stewardship.
We talked about Awe, hope, creativity, transformation, imagination, yearning for a world we want to see, biophilia, reconciliation, returning to the land, relationship centered schools, belonging, community, reciprocity, wellness.

05/01/2026

Earth Day, every day. 🌎
We've been continuing our earth day activities all week.

We are keeping an eye out for signs of spring and finding so many! It's so much fun to notice these new things everyday and celebrate this land we live in.

04/26/2026

Kids activities at the Cochrane Area Garden Expo TODAY (Sunday) at the Cochrane Lions Event Center.
Did your parents drag you out in the snow to look at plants?? Come visit our kids station to plant a seed of your own and learn about bees.

04/23/2026

Reflecting on Earth Day.
Looking out to the mountains from the hills above Cochrane I am reminded of a story in Chief John Snow's book, These Mountains are our Sacred Places, where the warriors would come to the top of the hill to look out to view where the buffalo were in the valleys below.

I take the kids there now and we stand and look out in wonder at the vast, quiet beauty of it all.

I feel a great kinship to this place and I hope that the kids who come out on the land begin to feel it too - not just as a place to visit but somewhere to belong to.

A relationship with the world in a way that supports and sustains both the people and the land in a reciprocal and joyful way.

This is the heart of Earth Day—
a recommitment to living in relationship with the land.
Not just for one day, but practiced quietly all year long.

Because
"we are part of this beautiful land,
and this beautiful land is part of us.
We are all related."
(Chief John Snow)

04/19/2026

When play is child-led, freely chosen, and done for the joy of it, kids build confidence, independence, and deep learning.

❓

Who’s choosing the activitied—the kids or the adults?
How much room is there for kids to follow their own ideas?
Is there time for uninterrupted play?

Sometimes what we call play is actually an adult-directed activity in disguise.

Worksheets, pre-planned crafts, and rotating “stations” can look purposeful and productive — but often the thinking, the outcome, and the direction have already been decided by us.

In slow pedagogy, we ask a different question:
🌿 Who is leading here?
🌿 Whose ideas are shaping the experience?
🌿 Where is the space for curiosity to wander?

Child-led play isn’t always neat.
It doesn’t always photograph well.
It often changes direction halfway through.
But this is where deep learning lives:
• problem-solving
• creativity
• language
• confidence
• self-trust
At Hygge in the Early Years, we don’t rush children through activities or outcomes.
We slow the pace.
We soften the structure.
We create environments that invite exploration — and then we step back.
Because when children are trusted to follow their own ideas, they don’t just do learning…
They become learners.
✨ Less product.
✨ More process.
✨ Less adult agenda.
✨ More childhood.
This is slow pedagogy.
This is Hygge in practice 🤍

www.hyggeintheearlyyears.co.uk