Live dangerously

At recess today, I took a gang of kids out to Tree Island - a favorite spot, too tangled and low for adults to enter.  Hiding in special nooks under the low branches of old apple trees, making a fort, or a little room  - that's what they love to do.  Third grader, Coleman asked me if he could climb a tree.  I said OK, "But not too high!"

I recently encountered a book on Amazon called Fifty Dangerous Things (You should let your children do)

 Things like licking a battery, throwing things from a moving car, or standing on the roof - perhaps antidotes to over-protection by adults. (It made me nostalgic for my own childhood!)  The author speaks of the importance of hands-on, self-directed learning as being critical to the development of the kind of creativity and love of learning that is largely absent from today's test driven schooling. 

So yes, kids, climbing trees is encouraged!
Tony Featherston's school blog