Cristina Gutiérrez, director of La Granja, in L’ofici d’educar in Catalunya Ràdio, with Elisabet Pedrosa, provides us with stories in nature that will make you reflect at home or in the classroom.
A space where nature, children and emotions produce moments of pure magic! Choose the subject or issue that you wish to work on with your children/pupils, listen together and then talk about it!
This is the story of Alba, a 4 year old girl who was walking in the forest when it started to rain… after getting wet, she said with surprise: “I showered under the forest rain and nothing happended!”. The rain was fun, healthy and refreshing, and brought her in contact with nature. Dare to build your child’s reality as close to nature as possible?
This is the story of Sergi, who was scared of getting on a horse. Working with horses at La Granja, Sergi understood that being brave is getting on the horse in spite of being afraid.Cristina Gutiérrez encourages us not to overprotect our children and give them the chance to discover the range of their own possibilities.
This is the story of Queralt, a girl who left a mark after her visit to La Granja, due to her wisdom, strength and consistency. Queralt has a variety of functional disorders and, even so, thanks to her courage she did all the activities proposed, including the Indiana Jones adventure circuit.
Queralt’s presence allowed the group to train things such as self-esteem, working as a team and positive communication; and Queralt won everyone’s admiration.
This is the story of Nuria, who was only five years old when she attended La Granja; along with the rest of the children, she was invited to listen to the sounds of the forest. After this experience she said: “the forest gives us music!”
Cristina Gutiérrez tells us how their observation at La Granja has shown that the forest modulates the behaviour of children thanks to this natural music.
This is the story of Laura, a 12 year old girl who came to La Granja for a visit with her secondary school classmates to work on empathy and respect. During the activity known as “the path of life”, walking barefoot over different textures, Laura discovered what made her most uncomfortable: cold water… and how she could face up to it, and thus identify emotional resources that could be useful for her every day life and relations with others.
This is the story of Luc, who came into the office at La Granja looking for the cap he had lost. While Cristina returned the cap and gave him a hug saying it was time to leave, she asked him: What are you taking with you from this week spent here Luc? And he answered: “we used to be like loose pieces of paper and now we are stuck together with sticky tape”. What did Luc mean? Cristina encourages us to be the “sticky tape” for the people we love.
This is the story of Nayale, a defiant little fighter, who very few dared to challenge.
During the activity known as “Weaving new relations”, where we work on empathy, surrounded by the serenity of the forest in the middle of nature, each one explains one of their best moments in life, and one of their worst; and then it was Nayale’s turn.
Èlia, who went to La Granja with her school class to do the “Filling up again” activity in order to express their experiences during the pandemic and give way to positive emotions. In her final reflections, Èlia said “I take with me remembering what it is to work as a team with my friends!”. Cristina reminds us that we must not forget small things like working together because it is essential to survive in the world of business, within families, and in the relation between school and family.
Elena did the activity known as “solidary skis” during summer camp: Several children tie their feet to a pair of skis and must walk together towards the finish line at the other end of the path.
Elena and her friends kept falling over at every step, not having fun at all during the activity, where the objective was to reach the finish line. At the end, 12 year old Elena told them: “Every fall is a lesson learned, and every lesson makes us better.”
Anna, a rebellious and challenging child considered the problematic and difficult member of the class, a role which she had accepted, was the only one who insisted they should try again because she believed they could do it.
After trying again they managed to carry out the activity successfully and they all thanked Anna for her passion, feeling that the world needed more people like her.