Raising Wildlings
Raising Wildlings
S2E24: Secret Spaces with Vicci Oliver and Nicki Farrell
Secret spaces and hidden places – there is something magical about them. Cubbies, forts, dens, tree houses whatever you want to call them, children are absolutely hardwired to design and create these havens that shelter them from the ever watchful and ever present eye of the adults. In this episode we talk all things cubby building and why we should be creating more opportunities for children to engage in this adventurous play.
👉 Nicki and Vicci share
- Cubby building as a rite of passage
- The vast myriad of benefits of building cubbies
- Tips and tricks for cubby building materials
- Language adults can use around a cubby building activity
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👉 Guest Details
Vicci Oliver and Nicki Farrell are adventurous nature play makers, risk-takers, children’s rights advocates and the co-founders of Wildlings Forest School. We are the hosts of the ‘Raising Wildlings’ podcast and we put the dirt back in childhood.
During any Wildlings Forest School program, you are likely to find Wildlings up trees, sliding down mud slides, whittling with pocket knives, lighting fires and building rafts. We let kids, be kids - because children can’t learn to protect nature if they’ve never had a childhood in it.
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We'll be right back. Welcome to Raising Wildlings, a podcast about parenting, alternative education, and stepping into the wilderness, however that looks, with your family.
SPEAKER_01:Each week, we'll be interviewing experts that truly inspire us to answer your parenting and education questions. We'll also be sharing stories from some incredible families that took the leap and are taking the road less travelled.
SPEAKER_00:We're your hosts, Vicki and Nikki from Wildlings Forest School. Pop in your headphones, settle in and join us on this next adventure.
SPEAKER_01:Before we start, we would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which this podcast is recorded, the Kabi Kabi and Gubbi Gubbi people. We honour their songlines and storylines and pay our respects to the elders past, present and emerging. We would also like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which you are listening to this episode.
SPEAKER_00:Hello and welcome to this episode of the Raising Wildlings podcast, where your hosts Vicki Oliver and Nikki Farrell. Look, it's been a really long time since we've been on the podcast together. We've had so many really cool guests and they're sharing so many amazing stories and knowledge. But we thought it was time to get the gang back together again.
SPEAKER_01:With the school holidays soon approaching, we were wanting to talk about the childhood rite of passage in building cubbies. And on that note, we still have some spaces left in our Sunshine Coast holiday program. Brisbane is completely sold out, but if you'd like to come and join us for fire and bush cooking or to whittle some primitive weapons or make some bow and arrows or come for an adventure day, then come and just jump on our website, wildlingsforestschool.com forward slash bookings. We really hope we get to see you there.
SPEAKER_00:And if they love making secret spaces, we also have that advanced shelter building session running these holidays as well. And in saying that, they do, they really love making secret spaces. And, you know, around the world, they're called different things, whether it's a cubby or a den or a fort. Children just want to be hidden from the world. And in particular, they do want to be hidden from the watchful eyes of us, the adults. But cubbies are not just a structure, right? They really become the centre of a very complex imaginative play that can involve a narrow And it's in these moments children are learning more than we could ever hope to teach them in the classroom. And there are really some important things that we need to consider as educators and parents. We're going to talk about that today.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So building shelters allows children to interact with their natural environment through challenge and creative play. So, for example, today I was at an excursion up in Gympie. It was beautiful weather and we saw children using natural loose parts and they were manipulating and experimenting. They were cooperating and communicating and there was all sorts of ways that they were individually seeking opportunities to engage in risky play.
SPEAKER_00:So these adult-free secluded spaces are really important for children. So we all know that shelter is one of our most basic human needs and cubby building just seems to be an innate behaviour in children. Not only is it, it can be really challenging, but it's really, really fun. I know that even as an adult, I mean, our job is to not go and build the cubbies for children. However, when we do engage in that sort of play, it's so much fun and it is really challenging. And even for adults, I was running a cubbies and shelters event professional development workshop for some educators in Brisbane a few weeks ago and it's just as challenging for adults as it is for children.
SPEAKER_01:It's funny I've noticed in the cooler months that the children are cubby building more so at Forest Kindy this week they naturally we had some trees locked by an arborist because we had some dangerous you know quote unquote dangerous limbs that had to be cut down on the property not our choice but anyway that's another that's another conversation another day but it was an immediate and very natural in invitation to play for them because there were big branches and big logs down. But we have parents attend our kindy and the parents couldn't help themselves either. There was log rolling and the most epic Y-shaped shelter built with parents and children.
SPEAKER_00:So
SPEAKER_01:it really is some kind of almost biological urge to build, I think, make ourselves shelter.
SPEAKER_00:It is. And we may want to initiate that cubby building with children, but look, in reality, Children will initiate this activity all on their own. As long as they've got the resources and the time, they will engage for hours in creating, recreating, adding to, you know, the villages that we've had at our cubby building workshops. And they create things like post boxes and, like, you know, and it's not always just houses. It can be, you know, observatories or partnerships.
SPEAKER_01:Photo frames. Yeah, all these different. You know, the tables or lettering to say this is my, you know, Today we had a tea house, so they were creating the letter T out of shape. So there's literacy skills even being built into cubby building.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. And so when you're in nature, it provides all of the resources you need. You can use, you know, palm fronds and tree branches and sticks and logs and bamboo and all of that sort of stuff. There's so many things that whatever's in your space you can use. However, you can also encourage cubby building with man-made materials as well.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so some of the things that we bring to excursions or down to Forest Kindy sometimes, and again, we're not instigating this. If sometimes I've brought the tubs down, I don't know if you have as well, Vicky, but I've brought them down assuming that if I put them out that they'll play with them and they've opened the box and gone, not today. Not today. And that's what Forest School is. We have to remember that that philosophy is it's free choice, it's free play, how they want to, and we're providing the time and the space and the resources, but only the resources if they want them.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so particularly particularly in our loose parts programs, the things that we'll bring that will help to encourage or, you know, further their endeavors when they're cubby building. Other types in the tent pegs and sheets as well. We steered away from using sheets because they were just, well. They got so filthy. They're so filthy because one of our awesome staff members was testing them to see how waterproof their cubbies were. And so they got very, very wet with buckets of water going over the top. So the sheets we sometimes bring out, and we collected those from op shops, but if you're going to do that, then really opt for the non-white ones.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, we highly recommend dark or army-coloured
SPEAKER_00:sheets. Yeah, and a lot of people actually do use those camo nets and stuff like that. You can buy specialty tarps or... cargo-y sort of shelter building materials as well. We just haven't opted to use those at the moment. It's always good to have hammers or mallets so that if they are using tent pegs or if you're creating your own pegs out of timber, like so whistling them down or using an axe to create them.
SPEAKER_01:Or your own mallets out
SPEAKER_00:of wood as well, wooden logs. Everything can be made in the forest. And so if you are using those tools and we usually have our saw horse and our saw down there, it's with our safety gloves. you know, things like twine or wax cotton or utility rope so that they can actually make sure that those structures are stable.
SPEAKER_01:I would say the rope, once they see the rope, because sometimes the tarps is not enough for them, but they see the rope and they go, right, now I can build.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, exactly. And then you can use other things like crates and pallets, even cardboard boxes. There's a really great little sets called Make Do Kits and they help to connect cardboard boxes together.
SPEAKER_01:They're really cool. They're fantastic
SPEAKER_00:fun. And they've been really good in those situations. I know that we've done a workshop with the hospital, is that right? So children that weren't able to go out in nature and so cardboard boxes were a really good option.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and that was really fun. All those kind of things. So what are the benefits of cubbies and shelters other than just good old-fashioned fun? There are so
SPEAKER_00:many. So, so many. Let's start with the really obvious one in their physical development. So obviously when you are picking up branches and logs and bamboo, you're lifting and twisting and crouching, reaching. All of these movements are natural consequences of building and the construction of cubbies. So they're getting a good workout. using their muscles in ways that are natural movements as well. So it's not like when you're going to a HPE class and you're doing really specific movements. It's all very natural, which is really important for the body in terms of building that strength.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and, you know, we kind of joke down at Forest School that it's the kids' CrossFit, but it's not really a joke.
SPEAKER_00:No.
SPEAKER_01:They move their bodies and lift them in ways you just can't quite often do without these kind of natural resources around. Exactly. Yeah, one of the other really obvious ones is fine and gross motor development because children can really, you know, they can put their hands and fingers to work. They're threading and weaving and pulling materials or palm fronds together and tying knots and things some of the things that they create in these cubbies, you know, the cups of tea with the little gum nuts and they're sitting and they're having meetings and
SPEAKER_00:whatnot. It's really cute. It's so
SPEAKER_01:cute. But it is. It's so cute. We had a little, we ended up having our gratitude circle in the shelter we built at Kindy this week because they didn't want to leave. That's perfect. So good. But there was so much fine and gross motor development.
SPEAKER_00:And as you mentioned that, one of the other benefits is that connection to space. So they're developing the knowledge of their surroundings so that they continue to build upon their understanding of this special space that they spend time in and um you know building that code like you say you've got to spend your gratitude circle in that particular cubby because they just loved it so much i know that we're planning on going on a camping trip and one of the first things one of the parents said was this is really amazing natural cubby space that the kids all gravitate to so they will have that connection to that space which is so amazing
SPEAKER_01:One of my favourite things is the cooperative and collaborative teamwork that you see, whether it's lifting the log or one person holding it while the other person tires it or the negotiation of who's going to use the tarp.
SPEAKER_00:Who's a bamboos? Was that? That was mine. That was mine. No, that was mine. No, mine
SPEAKER_01:was a
SPEAKER_00:green one. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, they do go into those arguments, but then they're also learning how to resolve those arguments and they're supported in that environment.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's right. But I think, and that sense of pride that comes from building something with their own hands when they've done that collaborative teamwork, it's, we always say down there, you know, five hands are better than one.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And one of the things I find really interesting a lot of the time, particularly in workshops with children who don't know each other. So, I mean, we do a lot with school. So all the children know each other and they work together in groups because they know who they like working with. But In holiday programs, it's a bunch of kids who do not know each other thrown in together. You get that random child that just wants to work on their own. And sometimes that works really well and they work on their own. And then there's sometimes they just need that little bit of time to try their idea on their own and then work out that actually what that person over there is doing is really good. Or someone else goes, oh, I like your idea and I think you need some help. And then they actually start making friends and working together. Yeah. And I love watching that. I love watching that unfold or just making that really gentle suggestion to them if I see they're getting really frustrated is trying to find that opportunity to pair children together so that they can work together to support their goal, which is a really amazing thing to watch.
SPEAKER_01:Which leads exactly what you've been talking about is that problem solving but also the planning. Like you said, you've got the lone wolf planners that are like, I remember I'm just going to awful throwback to my uni days and group projects. I'm like, you know what, I'd rather just do this myself.
UNKNOWN:Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01:But then eventually you're like, you know what, actually I do need some help. But it's that these are the kids that have great spatial awareness and they want to visualise and plan, all these budding engineers. We also do find there's managers and people that quite, you know, have their hands in their pockets and will tell people where they need things. but it works because they're using those communication skills and people will let them know if they're not happy being spoken to like that. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00:And they do. They really do. They do. And it gives them an opportunity to practice those skills, you know, and it's just so less threatening because it's not like a school project. Like you say, like at uni where you're thrown together and there's something at stake at the end of it, you know, and I'm going to do all the work and everyone's going to get an A because I did it all myself. It's not like that because you're all wanting the best outcome.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's so extrinsically motivated.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. And that also helps to inspire some of that creativity and supporting that imaginative play that I mentioned right at the start. So as I said, you know, that cubby could be a pirate ship one day. It could be a treehouse. I mean, we call our cubby building area the treehouse and it's not an inner tree. I don't know why we called it that. but that's what it's called. No, I don't. It's not a special name. Because
SPEAKER_01:it's just one giant log
SPEAKER_00:down. Yeah. This is the tree, this is the tree house. If we, you know, if everyone's like, oh, they're down at the tree house, we know where that is. But the amount of imaginative play that goes on in that area is, that is the imaginative play area.
SPEAKER_01:It really is, isn't it? If we're going to divide our space into that, that's where it happens.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I love watching, you know, they build little paths so they'll go and collect rocks and they'll line their little paths together. They're planting
SPEAKER_01:flowers. They go and find some branches and plant their trees. There's so much beautiful home pride.
SPEAKER_00:And then, you know, the imaginative play can be really intense as well. So, you know, where they're invading each other's spaces. So, like, that's... to manage sometimes, knowing when to sit back. and let them go and knowing when to step in when you feel things are going a little bit too far. That's a challenge for educators. But that's that imaginative role playing, that rough and tumble play combined with the secret spaces. It's complex, but it's such a great opportunity for children.
SPEAKER_01:That's so worth it. And, you know, they need to be practising those skills, particularly those conflict skills now, not when they're 18 with a beer under their belt. They need to be learning how to negotiate with no violence at this and this is how we can practice this in what feels to them very real.
SPEAKER_00:That's right. That personal risk assessment is so huge. That's another really amazing benefit. It's learning to adjust and change due to the uncertainty that can happen with building a cubby. You know, they have to risk assess where they're putting their cubby, whether or not they're going to be able to fit in their cubby altogether, whether it's safe enough to be in their cubby, whether it's going to protect them from whatever they think they need to be protected from. And children aren't able to make good decisions unless we let them make decisions. And being able to create the wonderland that is their secret space really allows them to do that personal risk assessment. It's so important. I can't emphasise that enough.
SPEAKER_01:No. And, you know, the only time you should really be stepping in in cubbies is if you think that a branch that is higher than their head is going to come down on their head. And that's not you stepping in and saying, be careful. It's... hi, I've noticed that this branch looks a little loose and it looks like it might fall on your head if it falls off. What could you do
SPEAKER_00:about that? Yeah, what's your plan?
SPEAKER_01:What's your plan? Does this branch feel safe? Yeah. So we're not going in to save them. We're not being saviours. It's letting them problem solving it but letting them become aware of the potential
SPEAKER_00:risk. Which then also leads us to language development. So we can be using new and complex vocab. I love this. when we're creating. So things like weaving and threading and looping, and particularly for little kids, you know, loop and stack and shelter. It
SPEAKER_01:can be really simple. Is this dry? Is it warm? Yeah. What's dead wood? What does design and construct and camouflage mean? But that's all... It's vocab. It's so good because it's in the moment and it's relative and it's in their hot little hands at the moment so they retain it so much better.
SPEAKER_00:And that emotional vocabulary as well. So when they're needing to express their needs and ideas with their peers to communicate, they can do that and they have an opportunity to be able to use the words that they need to use and we can support them through that. in those situations and give them the words and help them to find the words that they need to express their needs to their friends.
SPEAKER_01:And our final benefit and probably my favourite because it's just weaved all throughout forest schooling so naturally is growth mindset. You know, building cubbies very naturally helps children be okay with failure when something doesn't work because they're still so determined to put it up, so determined to get a roof on that
SPEAKER_00:hut
SPEAKER_01:that they'll just keep going and going and going and no one's saying that it has to be finished and it has to look like this and it has to be this and it has to be graded. It's just do you love it? Yeah. And they do. And some of you would have seen the same. particularly when we have kindy and, you know, we're down there or even in holiday programs and someone says, you know, can you teach me or not? And you start teaching them and they go, oh, don't worry, I've got it. They're so keen to go and have a go. But then they might come back halfway through when they haven't been so successful. Yeah. And they'll come and ask again for a knot. Or the little ones will come and say, you know, I've done, my cubby's finished. And they've got One branch lent against one tree and they're throwing a sheet over and they're playing
SPEAKER_00:there for three hours. That's it. And so that's the hard thing too. Like, you know, the three hours that we usually allocate for a holiday program or a lot of our programs are three hours in length is not three hours of solid building. It allows for the building, which can literally take five minutes from a selection of material to finished, but then they have two hours and 55 minutes to then play. in that cubby that they've created.
SPEAKER_01:So good. And that's often their most favourite part of the session as well.
SPEAKER_00:So if we want to support children through this, our role is obviously to keep them safe. But there's some things that you can discuss with children, like even if it's your own kids and you're playing with shelters for survival, for example, there's a few things you can talk to them about, like the layout of the land. So you can talk about where the sun rises or sets and if you had like an actual shelter that you were looking at. keeping you warm, which is the purpose of them. You can look at which way is the wind coming from? Are there any slopes? Like where would water pool? And talk about like if you were actually trying to, you got lost in the woods, you know, where would you put a shelter? Where wouldn't you put a shelter? You can have some of those discussions as you're going.
SPEAKER_01:And it makes the session, it gets them really animated and it just gives them again, they get so much pride from feeling like they're doing adult things where they need to be responsible and really thoughtful in what they do. So another thing to take note of is what is already in the space that can be used to build from or user support structures. And that's the entire reason. When we first came and discovered our nature space, we didn't go down and say, oh, that area is going to be the cubby space. The children chose that. It's in a natural old flood zone, a creek, a dry creek bed that only floods, you know, once or twice a year. And so once or twice a year we get new debris that gets washed down there. But there's a giant log against some beautiful giant camp for laurels that provides this hollow and these beautiful support structures that make cubby building, particularly for their littles, so much easier. And children love. naturally gravitate to them. But every now and then we get a child that's just determined to make a TP.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And, you know, sometimes they'll succeed and sometimes they don't. And that's okay. Easy.
SPEAKER_00:And then you can ask them like, what kind of materials are you going to use? And then you can have a talk about the shape of them and what their purpose is. And you don't have to give them the answers. You can just ask them the questions to get them thinking about it a little bit more. You don't have to ask any questions. in all honesty, but sometimes you might want to. Sometimes it's, you know, particularly if this is not coming from an educational perspective or a programming perspective, if you're doing this professionally with your family, like if you're camping or something like that, and they're wanting you to be part of it, then you can have those conversations with them as well. And then you can do fun things like does this shelter, you know, does it shelter you from the weather? You can test that. You can be the fun one. Yes. There is a bucket of water. Our kids love
SPEAKER_01:that.
SPEAKER_00:It's so fun. Is it waterproof? No. Didn't know they were going to get that wet during a cubby building session.
SPEAKER_01:And testing, you know, is it strong and will it stand secure? I'm going to come around and I'm going to, with your permission, I'm going to give it a shake. What's going to fall down? Perhaps suggest they're not in under it while you're doing the
SPEAKER_00:show. And can we leave this up or do we have to take it down? Can we leave these materials here? Is this going to be safe for someone else to stumble upon?
SPEAKER_01:And some other questions you can ask are where will the access points be? We hardly ever need to ask this because they've always got secret doors and secret tunnels and
SPEAKER_00:little access points. Every now and again you'll be like, how do you get into this one? And they're like, oh, a door. But most of the time they've got it completely figured out. And then do you need to change anything? Can it make it work better or can we join them together? You know, they're not questions you have to ask, but sometimes these have just come to mind in the moment where it's just helping to support, you know, further them or to just make them think a little bit more about what they're doing or to extend them. Because, you know, if you find there's a bit of a lull, you
SPEAKER_01:can
SPEAKER_00:just ask those questions to reignite.
SPEAKER_01:And particularly if you're in a school setting, there's always those children that feel like they need to finish first.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So it's a great thing to ask is what could we add? How could you decorate it? What, you know, what about... you know, accessorising picture frames and mailboxes and gardens. You know, we've had children create lake houses and pool houses. So, yeah. And one thing we would also like to point out is how are we going to manage these natural resources sustainably? Yeah. You know, sometimes we have children come down and go, can I borrow the saw and the garden loppers?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you know what they're about to do.
SPEAKER_01:What's our favourite question? What's your plan? I'm just going to chop this. Well, that's a native.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, they're not going to touch any of the palms down here.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. And this over here, so we have our cubby building area and that's the area we're allowed to use whatever's on the ground. But then the rest of our site, we leave those sticks there and we leave them there for animal habitat and bird habitat and just to decompose and keep our forest healthy. So that's great environmental stewardship. That's how we teach our kids to look after an area and to think about, you know, what this land is used for other than this one project in this moment. Yeah. It's how do we look after this for the next seven
SPEAKER_00:generations. And on that point, just so you know, one of the challenges of running our business is that sometimes we do need to bring in the natural materials so that we can preserve our space. Yeah. If you're ever, ever wondering like what goes on behind the scenes, sometimes it can be hours cutting down bamboo. Hours. Tying it up in the top of trailers. Having your hands full of spiky bamboo. Bamboo. Splinters. Having your child being bitten by jumping ants in a bamboo pile. That's right. on the side of the highway. That's the sort of thing that happens when you are running a business like this. It's not uncommon for us to be doing that. And one of the first things that we were like, maybe we should outsource that particular activity because it is, it's very labor intensive.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And when you look at our fees and you wonder why it costs a certain amount for a cubby shelter, that's because we've spent six hours harvesting bamboo so that it doesn't shred your children's fingers. There is so much behind the scenes that people don't see behind any small business.
UNKNOWN:So,
SPEAKER_01:Whatever you purchase from a small business, please remember that we do the biggest happy dance and that you're literally putting food on our family's tables. So thank you if you've ever participated in any of our sessions or purchased anything from our shop or just even just mentioned our business to a friend because that's literally how this business has been built and of the good word of our friends. So thank you.
UNKNOWN:Music
SPEAKER_00:Now watching our wildlings create secret spaces is honestly something beautiful to observe. We're so honored to be able to provide the time, the space and the support to encourage this much, much loved childhood activity.
SPEAKER_01:One of the ways in which you can support your child during risky play is to be very mindful and intentional with the language we use. We're all guilty of defaulting to be careful. So we've helped create a little cheat sheet of what to say when your child is engaged in risky play. Now, this is a free downloadable sheet that has some great ideas to swap out for the be carefuls to something more helpful, such as what is your plan or do you feel safe there? So to get your free risky play language cheat sheet, just head to www.wildlingsforestschool.com forward slash free dash downloadables.
SPEAKER_00:And as always, we love doing this journey with you. So until next time, stay wild. Stay wild.