'And then there is the world of little things,seen all too seldom. Many children, perhaps because they themselves are small and closer to the ground than we, notice and delight in the small and inconspicuous. With this beginning, it is easy to share with them the beauties we usually miss because we look too hastily, seeing the whole and not its parts. Some of nature's most exquisite handiwork is on a miniature scale, as anyone knows who has applied a magnifying glass to a snowflake.'

Rachel Carson, The Sense of Wonder

SNAIL

By bringing woodlice and snails into the classroom we have, through tiny moments of interactions with these organisms, started to build pedagogical fluidity between the school courtyard, the local park and the children's classrooms. After two months we noticed changes in our children's behaviour and language:

'The amount of times our children talk about the environment has increased'

'Children are looking under trees,under tables, in the grass. They are exploring for themselves now that they have the knowledge of woodlice and snails.'

(Teacher Comments, October 2007)

Woodlice and snails were chosen for their interesting structures, the role that their feeding habits and behaviours play in avoiding predation and their 'everyday' identities as common organisms. These were organisms that children might be familiar with and could bring their own experiential stories to. ^{1) 2)}

Connecting with living organisms in a learning environment can stimulate children's thinking, draw silent children towards speech ³⁾, entrance and captivate. It can also create opportunities to model specialised language such as that found in the natural sciences.In addition, children learn to engage with smaller, more vulnerable organisms and discover that the world is filled with biological diversity if they take time to look. Learning to look and recognise changes in patterns and textures is an important skill to develop when engaging with nature and classifying organisms. This skill has been named as 'the eighth intelligence' (naturalist intelligence, 'nature-smart') by Howard Gardner, developer of the influential multiple intelligences theory. However, as Rachel Carson comments:

'I think the value of the game of identification depends on how you play it. if it becomes an end in itself I count it of little use. It is possible to compile extensive lists of creatures seen and identified without ever having caught a breath-taking glimpse of the wonder of life. If a child asked me a question that suggested even a faint awareness of the mystery behind the arrival of a migrant sandpiper on the beach of an August morning, I would be far more pleased than by the mere fact that he knew it was a sandpiper and not a plover'.

'What makes a worm? It is slinky, slithery, slimy, soft, blind and voracious'

Logan, 1995

Using Mollie Clarke's book 'Worms' we developed a series of three lessons based around specific questions and experiments.

• What do earthworms eat?

• How does your earthworm move?

• Do earthworms respond to strong smells?

• What happens when earthworms make burrows?

WORM

The experiments varied between those that offered immediate results and those that required revisiting the following week. Earthworms are suffocated by extensive handling, (as they breathe through their moist skin), so we collected several individuals and rotated their exposure during the initial handling session. Handling the earthworms gave our children opportunities to experience the 'slinky, slithery, slimy and soft' characteristics of their bodies in movement, and offered stimulus for creative language work.Add photo of child's hand with earthworm

What do Earthworms eat?

Each child suggested a food the earthworm might eat. From this discussion we wondered if a worm ate only plants or would eat meat as well. The question of eating decayed material and its own pooh [faeces] came up too. After making our predictions and discussing them we set up the flowerpot experiment [add picture]. While we were preparing the pot environment the earthworm was passed to each child's hand (with adult support) and they were encouraged to describe how it feels.

Earthworm Bristles

Earthworms possess bristles (setae) on the base of their bodies which help them to anchor into the soil.If placed on stiff paper and held near a child's ear the noise of the bristles can clearly be heard moving across the surface.

Earthworm responses to strong smells

We made a circle of vinegar on sugar paper and placed an earthworm in the middle and watched its responses as it came to the edge of the circle. We also dipped some sugar paper in vinegar and moved it near to the worm and again observed what happened. The worm exhibited some interesting behaviours in response to the vinegar.

Earthworm Burrows

Using a small clear plastic tank we placed layers of different soils and pure sand topped with a humic layer containing leaves. The worms were added at the top and the tank kept moist. The tank was re-visited in several lessons and was a catalyst for many creative questions inspired by children's observations.

Soil and Earthworm Survey 2009

During March 2009 we are taking part in the OPAL explore nature project http://www.opalexplorenature.org soil and earthworm survey as a primary focus of our programme. To do this we will be supporting our children to develop their visual classification skills.

”The tiny creatures of the undergrowth were the first creatures of any kind to colonise the land. They established the foundations of the land's ecosystems and were able to transcend the limitations of their small size by banding together in huge communities of millions. If we and the rest of the back-boned animals were to disappear overnight, the rest of the world would get on pretty well. But if the invertebrates were to disappear, the land’s ecosystems would collapse. Wherever we go on land, these small creatures are within a few inches of our feet – often disregarded. We would do very well to remember them.”

David Attenborough.

Drawing on Edith Cobb's work we are considering how the places of refuge children find in books and their imagination can be supported by creative play within nature-based settings. Micro-worlds for children to discover, explore, create, reflect in, communicate with and dramatise, as Cobb so aptly describes:

'Nature for the child is sheer sensory experience, although any child can draw in the wings of his surroundings at will and convert the self into a 'theatre of perception' in which he is at once producer, dramatist and star. Therefore, the child's world, his surroundings, are not separated into nature and artefact' ⁴⁾

The use of animal puppets can create a doorway for children to enter imaginary and natural worlds simultaneously. We have found that children refer back to these sessions and draw on them in other learning contexts.

'The outdoors offers children freedom to explore different ways of being, feeling, behaving and interacting'

Gail Ryder Richardson, 2006

Like Mary in The Secret Garden and Simon in Lord of the Flies, we are developing spaces where children can find a place to be with nature:

'There were other trees in the garden, and one of the things which made the place look strangest and loveliest was that climbing roses had run all over them and swung down long tendrils which made light swaying curtains, and here and there they had caught at each other or at a far-reaching branch and had crept from one tree to another and had made bridges of themselves. There were neither leaves nor roses on them now, and Mary did not know whether they were dead or alive, but their thin grey or brown branches and sprays looked like a sort of hazy mantle spread over everything’

Hodgson-Burnett, 1994, p. 78–9

'He came at last to a place where more sunshine fell. Since they had not so far to go for light, the creepers had woven a great mat that hung at the side of an open space in the jungle; for here a patch of rock came close to the surface and would not allow more than little plants to grow. The whole space was walled with dark aromatic bushes, and was a bowl of heat and light. A great tree, fallen across one corner, leaned against the trees that still stood and a rapid climber flaunted red and yellow sprays right to the top. Simon paused. He looked over his shoulder as Jack had done at the close ways behind him and glanced swiftly to confirm he was utterly alone. For a moment his movements were almost furtive. Then he bent down and wormed his way into the centre of the mat. The creepers and bushes were so close he left his sweat on them and they pulled together behind him. When he was secure in the middle he was in a little cabin screened off from the open space by a few leaves.'

Golding, 1964, p. 54

We believe that learning beyond the classroom has much to offer children and plan for regular outings throughout the academic year.From the autumn term 2007 to summer term 2008 we have made trips to the following places:

• Groombridge Place Gardens and Enchanted Forest Kent

• The Chelsea Physic Garden London

• Investigate Gallery at the Natural History Museum London

• The London Aquarium

• Amazing butterflies exhibition at the Natural History Museum London

A major element of our project is to develop an outdoor science learning garden. This is an opportunity to build powerful dialogues between children, teachers, therapists and parents to create an outdoor laboratory for learning; growing children’s experiences by providing interactive ecospaces for invertebrates, plants and amphibians.

In this garden environment children can find windows into other worlds:

'A lens-aided view into a patch of moss reveals a dense tropical jungle, in which insects large as tigers prowl amid strangely formed, luxuriant trees. A bit of pond weed or seaweed put in a glass container and studied under a lens is found to be populated by hordes of strange beings, whose activities can entertain you for hours. Flowers (especially the composites), the early buds of leaf or flower from any tree, or any small creature reveal unexpected beauty and complexity when, aided by a lens, we can escape the limitations of the human size scale'

Rachel Carson, The Sense of Wonder

POND