Te Taiao, our connection to the natural world, is one of the four core principles at Our Kids. But I want to be honest about how this connection has deepened for me personally, because I think my journey has something to offer our kaiako, our whānau, and anyone working in ECE who wants to make outdoor experiences genuinely meaningful for tamariki.
For a long time, I knew nature was important. I could see the value in what was happening at one of our centres where the team had developed a deep bicultural practice, connecting tamariki to te ao Māori through the whetū of Matariki, local pūrākau, hīkoi to places of significance, and planting and harvesting by Te Maramataka, the Māori lunar calendar. I was inspired and I supported it. But I also knew something was missing. I researched forest kindergartens from Scandinavia, Finland, and Australia. I found very little literature that felt right for our context here in Aotearoa. I was looking for an answer to the question: how do we make outdoor experiences genuinely meaningful and take them deeper?
I have recently found that answer, and it came from two places: my own experience in nature, and a framework called the Children's Environmental Kinship Guide.
During Covid, my husband and I started going for long nature walks close to home. On our first walk I noticed signboards about bird residents and native wetland flora. I could hear birds but I did not see any. The next time, I stopped and looked properly. I spotted fantails, tui, and fern birds. I went back the next day just to see the birds. I could not believe there were nearly 20 tui right there, and I had lived nearby all those years.
With each visit I became more tuned in. I began noting which trees the birds were drawn to. I researched eco-sourced plants and trees used for rongoā. Near our house I discovered we had both manuka and kanuka trees, and I wanted to know which was which. I learned that manuka leaves are spiky while kanuka are soft to touch, that manuka stays bushy while kanuka grows tall, and that manuka flowers are larger and showier. But I could not confirm it from one visit or one source. It took repeated observation and research to know for sure. I made manuka tea from the leaves.
Later, on a trip to Stewart Island, my observation skills had sharpened. I could identify kereru by the sound of its wing beats. I learned that fantails dart around people to catch the insects we disturb as we walk. I learned the purakau of tieke, the saddleback. And I discovered something that has stayed with me: the kereru is the only bird with a gape big enough to swallow the miro seed, and the seed can only germinate after passing through the kereru's stomach. Without kereru, the miro tree cannot regenerate. The bird and the tree depend on each other.
I also started visiting the seashore to observe coastal birds. When I heard that the godwits, kūaka, were back from Alaska, I learned from our community page to look one hour either side of high tide. I went once and spotted them from a distance. I went back the next day prepared, and had such a fulfilling afternoon watching them feed on the mudflats that I could almost cry. These birds had flown 13,000km nonstop from Alaska across the Pacific Ocean. For some iwi, kūaka are kaitiaki, guardians. For others, they accompany spirits of the departed.
My husband and I went on many hikes together. He was interested in exercise, I was interested in nature. He started stopping to listen to the birds. I persevered through medium-difficulty hikes because I did not want to miss the view. We became very tuned to nature together. I used to read about how indigenous people knew when to grow crops by reading the natural world around them, but it was abstract to me. It was only through my own experience of becoming attuned, visit after visit, that I finally understood what that meant. Our friends went to the same bird sanctuaries, but they hardly saw any birds. Same place, completely different experience, because they were not yet tuned in.
At home, my connection kept growing. I now have over 70 house plants. I started growing vegetables, much of it new to me, and had success with many of them. I set up a worm farm. I even considered replacing our tropical landscaping with native plants to support bird life in the Waitakere landscape. We ended up going with tropical for practical reasons, but the fact that I was even thinking that way showed how much my relationship with nature had shifted. When you develop appreciation, you start to care. And that is the whole point.
The Children's Environmental Kinship Guide, developed by an international group of researchers and practitioners including Dr Anne Meade from Aotearoa, gave me the framework I had been searching for. It describes four ways of engaging with nature: learning About nature, learning In nature, learning With nature, and learning For nature, with kinship, a deep sense of relationship, at the centre.
When I look back at my own journey, I can see all four:
Learning About Nature is building subject knowledge. Identifying birds, learning which trees they depend on, researching manuka and kanuka, understanding the godwit migration. This is the knowledge that allows you to respond meaningfully when a child's curiosity leads them to a discovery.
Learning In Nature is what happens when you are physically there, regularly. Building body control, resilience, and confidence. On a hike in the Cook Islands, I gave up the first day because the track was too steep. I went back the next day from the other end and made it to the top. There was little information about the difficulty beforehand and the top took forever to come. When I got there, I had no idea how to get back down. I had never come down a steep hill like that before. I figured it out as I went, holding on to branches where I could, sliding on my bottom where I could not. I came back with sore muscles but I was really proud. That hike gave me the confidence to try harder ones. This is exactly what happens for tamariki when they climb a tree they could not reach before, or cross a stream and problem-solve when it is harder than expected.
Learning With Nature is forming a genuine relationship. This does not happen from a single visit. It builds through repeated time in the same place, becoming familiar, noticing changes, feeling connected. My lockdown walks became something I needed, not just something I did. That is kinship.
Learning For Nature is when care turns into action. Guardianship, responsibility, sustainability. You cannot force this. It grows from love, and love grows from regular, real experience. A child who has spent time noticing insects, watching birds, and caring for plants will naturally begin to care about protecting them. At one of our centres, tamariki have become skilled at separating their rubbish and recycling. They have created bird feeders from recycled materials, built bug hotels, and tend the worm compost each week. Nobody forced this on them. It grew from their growing relationship with the natural world around them.
Connecting to te taiao looks different across our centres. At one centre, the bicultural practice runs deep, with Matariki whetū woven into the curriculum all year round, regular hīkoi to local reserves and streams, and strong connections to the whakapapa and stories of the local area. At another, the focus has been on sustainability: recycling, gardening, composting, and learning about the birds and insects in their immediate environment.
But I also know that across our organisation, there is room to grow. When you research and plant a garden with teaching opportunities in mind, that garden needs people with the knowledge and interest to keep it alive. When tamariki are plucking flowers for sandpit cooking, a kaiako with subject knowledge might gently teach them to take some and leave the rest. These small moments are where real learning about kaitiakitanga happens, but they require awareness and confidence that comes from the kaiako's own relationship with nature.
I do not expect every centre to start with bush walks and bird identification. That would be ambitious and overwhelming. Small steps matter. A worm farm. Noticing the birds in your own outdoor space. Growing one vegetable. Visiting the same nearby park regularly so tamariki build familiarity and start to notice changes. Giving children enough time when you get there, not rushing through.
The key insight from the Kinship Guide and from my own experience is that this is not about kaiako teaching nature to children. It is about giving tamariki regular access, enough time, and repeated visits so that they discover it themselves. The kaiako's role is to be alongside them with enough knowledge to respond when curiosity opens a door, and to model what it looks like to care.
Daisies Early Education and Care Centre in Wellington, founded by Dr Anne Meade, one of the Kinship Guide authors, does this beautifully. Their kaiako go on weekly excursions to the same local bush with tamariki. It is child-led. They build up gradually, with older tamariki eventually climbing to the top of their local maunga. And critically, kaiako are given time to visit the place themselves first, develop their own connection, and reflect on what they learned. You cannot give what you do not have.
At Our Kids, we can do this too. We can give kaiako time to visit local natural spaces and build their own knowledge. We can offer professional development where the interest is strong. And we can grow this across all our centres, one small step at a time.
Because here is what I have learned: you cannot force children to care about nature. But if you give them enough time there, if you go back to the same place again and again, if you let them stop when something catches their eye, if you slow down and notice alongside them, the care will come. It came for me on my lockdown walks. It can come for our tamariki too.
In part two, I will share practical guidance on what children naturally do when we give them regular time in nature, and how kaiako can support their learning without directing it.
Fox, H., Gessler, M., Higgins, A., Meade, A., Warden, C. & Williams Ridge, S. (2020). Children's Environmental Kinship Guide. Environmental Kinship International.
Hedges, H. (2005). The role of subject content knowledge in early childhood teachers. University of Melbourne.