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Children in the Garden

Teamwork

Carrot

Working With Our Teams at Nursery

Here are just a few ideas that can be implemented…We've done as many as we can.

 

 

  • Offer staff extra holiday days if they travel by train instead of by plane.

  • Provide monthly sustainable prizes for great environment-friendly teaching and learning.

  • Encourage car sharing by introducing parents who live in neighbouring postcode or ones en route to the nursery.

  • Join WWF, so staff can stay informed and know what we can all do to help.

  • Join the Woodland Trust or ask them for free trees for schools.

  • Contribute to 4Ocean and receive monthly ocean plastic recycled bracelets to use as target prizes.

  • Get a Bee Saver Kit for your Nursery garden with wildflower seeds, garden planner, bee spotter and guide, and post cardsfor bees. Available from Friends of The Earth.

  • Use two different bins in each Nursery room – one for non-recyclable waste, one for recyclable and engage children so they use them accurately.

  • Up-Cycle all plastic, do not throw it away, and invent with it.

  • Minimise food waste. Use any uncooked vegetable left overs for your growing area compost, or to feed your chickens, or arrange for them to be picked up to be turned into biofuel.

  • Ask Managers and Teams for their ideas and trial them too.

  • Link Nurseries to a local scrap project, where clean reusable items, such as stationary and unwanted furniture, are donated by businesses and can be sourced and reused by children and schools.

  • They are so fun to go to and are a great starting point for inspired, open-ended and creative learning. Google your nearest depot, or find your nearest Scrapstore at www.reusefuluk.org

 

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A Sustainable Curriculum

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A sustainable curriculum not only gives your Nursery’s children the best opportunities to engage in wonderful, immersive experiences, it is a clear message to all parents, stakeholders, future parents, staff and children that you are all 100% committed to improving – it’s not wrong to say - saving our planet for our children’s future. Those Nurseries which have already committed to being 100% eco-friendly are reporting how the change has become a unifying force between staff, parents and children who are all proud to be part of the mission. Global warming is a problem for everyone and addressing it is a meaningful goal for us all.

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Add some books to Your Team

 

Education for Sustainable Citizenship in Early Childhood

 

Education for Sustainable Citizenship- Think Children's Future For Today 

 

Both books are by Lynette Brock and John Siracusa Blatchford and have some brilliant EY ideas for tasks and projects to engage your children with.

 

Eco Warriors

Cheryl Hadland, (at Tops and GECCO) has put a great idea into action.  

Try nominating a member of staff in each room who can keep an eye on the practice, room and on shared areas, and can then tell the team any great sustainable changes needed for resourcing and energy use!

Our Teams

Below is what we agreed to ‘Action’ and have been putting in with our teams :

 

FOCUS IS LESS WASTE AND ECONOMIC ENERGY USE

Cut back waste and make our resource usage economical in :

  • Food

  • Cleaning

  • Toilet roll etc

  • (And to teach staff to teach their children how and why)

  • Change Energy Providers to 100% renewable

 

Throwing out

Try to upcycle and not bin (eg. squirters) 

Take on waste recycling and sort bins into bins in the classrooms first - put much less into black bins!

 

Putting in 

Trees - this one is equally important - we can get free ones from the Woodland Trust

LED bulbs, most current light fittings should take them

Water butts

Paper wrapped recyclable loo roll

Recycled copy paper

Recycle our printing ink cartridges

Glass milk bottles with Cool Milk

Soap bars only in toilets and kitchen

Earth-friendly cleaning products

Local producers for quality fruit and veg delivered in crates

(And to use these opportunities to extend our curriculum and understanding)

Separate recycling bins in each room, and all nappies and food waste is sent to be made into Biofuel

 

Aiming to cut back or stop altogether

Plastic felt pens

Plastic glue sticks and plastic based glue! We have found recipes for homemade!

Paints that are acrylic which is plastic based

Plastic gloves and aprons everywhere, only when really necessary and not single use

Veg delivery in plastic bags, it can come in crates or boxes

Plastic water bottles once worn and unusable

Leaving chargers turned on unless needed

Using laminators

Squirters that are non earth friendly, reuse old bottles

Amazon and all other single deliveries because of wrapping and miles travelled sometimes alone!

 

Cutting back

Photocopying and Printing.

 

Keeping cool inside

Air conditioning - use sparingly and try this too:

Rooms can be kept cool by closing curtains, blinds or shutters, opening several windows to let a through current of air, and making sure you do this at the beginning of any hot days.  In the rooms make sure there is lots of water to drink and for play.

Have calm and quietly engaging activities, and play calm music.  Try to serve cold watery snacks like fruit or salad.  For younger children try to have drinks at room temperature because ‘ice cold’ can be hard work or a shock for hot bodies and can interrupt digestion.

 

Keeping cool outside

Take groups of children and lots of water to a park which has good tree shade or a woodland, arboretum or forest.  

Make sure children don’t have any excess clothes on. Staff are free to wear plain shorts or skirts.

 

Energy use

Making energy sweeps of the nursery to see what can be turned off, including number of fridges and tablets and iPad's at night.

 

INSIDE AS WELL AS OUTSIDE SUSTAINABLE CURRICULUM

A few changes to help the environment:

1. Role play natural dens etc inside too

2. Water play inside...it cools the environment

3. Mark making and decorating in sand etc and mandalas

4. Scrap building- find your local scrap project and join

5. Only use scrap paper from scrap project ...no new

6. Sewing and weaving, wood and stick joining and macrame

7. Discovery books and nature and magnifiers etc

8. Sorting and comparing nature brought in from outside

9. Size and weights nature brought in from outside

10.Book making from scrap paper and book sharing

11.Bug hotels and little homes for hedgehogs in a quiet place

12.Research- there’s much more already out there

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The question is, are we happy to suppose that our grandchildren may never be able to see an elephant except in a picture book?

-David Attenborough

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