Join us for a full-day, immersive professional learning experience grounded in nature, courage, and connection. This wānanga invites kaiako to step into nature-based practice with curiosity, confidence, and clarity.

We begin together with a whole-group opening session that unpacks the realities of nature-based practice: navigating regulations, managing risk, working with tools, fire and barefoot culture. Then there is opportunity to attend each of the following hands on wānanga, all facilitated in the centre’s outdoor spaces.

There are limited spaces for this day. Click here for the flyer

Venue - Country Bears Nature Childcare, 79 Oraha Road, Kumeu

To enrol click here

Craft Workshop: Whittling & Flint-and-Steel.

Facilitator: Nikky Tauranga                                                 

Step into a hands-on workshop designed to grow your confidence, creativity and sense of adventure. Together we’ll explore the traditional skills of whittling and flint-and-steel fire making, learning safe, practical techniques you can take back to your Centre to enrich children’s experiences of challenge and discovery.

This workshop invites kaiako to lean into the principles of perseverance, creativity and productive challenge. As you whittle wood, strike sparks to create fire and navigate moments of success and struggle, you’ll be encouraged to slow down and notice what is happening within and around you; your thoughts, your emotions, your responses, and the subtle shifts in your learning process.

To find out more about Nikky click here

Earth to Expression.

Facilitator: Michelle Flower

This hands-on workshop invites kaiako to explore uku as a creative, sensory, and

culturally grounded visual arts material. Guided by pūrākau, including the story of

Hineahuone, and grounded with a karakia to Papatūānuku, kaiako will experience

how natural materials can support meaningful, curriculum-aligned learning.

Through working with uku and found materials from the ngāhere, kaiako will reflect

on how visual expression, sensory engagement, and storytelling can be woven into

learning experiences in the ngāhere. The workshop offers practical ideas that can

be adapted and presented every day in your early learning environment.

A Slower Lens: Cultivating Wonder in Nature

Facilitator: Lynn Rupe

This hands-on workshop invites kaiako to slow down in nature and reconnect with a sense of wonder and awe. Using photography as a companion, we will practise noticing, not to capture or document, but to be present. 

Through quiet exploration, reflection, and shared kōrero, kaiako will experience how slowing down supports deeper noticing, and why kaiako presence is central to nurturing wonder for tamariki. No photography experience required, just curiosity and a willingness to move slowly.