Over the years, Victoria Avenue Children’s Centre has placed an important focus on building children’s relationships with nature, including animals. To embed this into our Centre, we have introduced different wildlife animals to expose and encourage children to explore the animal kingdom first hand. We are home to many animals including stick insects, fishes, lizards and even a rabbit.
The best thing about children having this exposure is the skills they will produce over the years. They have learnt and will continue to learn how to nurture the animals with care, empathy, respect, understand their needs and also understand the impact they will have on the natural world around them. By using senses during hands on interactions, the children have gained a higher understanding of what it means to care for animals.
The children get to measure, weigh, feed, clean and discover all there is to know about animals through their daily interactions with them.
We have been lucky enough to provide children and families with the opportunity to take Bella our rabbit home for the weekend, extending on this experience outside the centre walls. We have had fantastic feedback from families who just adore Bella, with each family taking real ownership, responsibility and partnership in the Centre program. It is our philosophy to continue this admiration for our natural world within the centre and bring our knowledge that we have learnt to the wider community.
We hope to welcome more animals to Victoria Avenue Children’s Centre to foster the children’s learning and develop this love for Mother Nature.
Niki Ficsor
@wellbankchildrenscentre