Fernleigh | Our Homebase of Craft, Community & Open Skies

Fernleigh is where Wise Earth Bush School begins and returns. A place of open paddocks, gentle hills and tree-lined corners that invite imagination to unfold. It is our anchor point for craft, skill-building and slow, grounded play with children and their loved ones.

Children Explore

• Woodworking with real tools: sanding, drilling, building and creating
• Open-ended play with mud kitchens, climbing, cubby building and gardening
• Animal care, seasonal planting and tending to the land
• Nature-based art using ochre, charcoal, leaves and flowers
• Group games, morning circles and social rhythms that help children settle and belong

Developmental Benefits

• Fine- and gross-motor mastery through tool use and active play
• Emotional regulation through predictable routines and spacious outdoor flow
• Social confidence, communication and collaborative problem-solving
• Sensory integration through hands-on work, texture, movement and nature
• Deepening care for land, animals and each other

Fernleigh is the heart of WEBS, a warm, grounded home where children grow capable, connected and confident in the wide-open beauty of nature.

Flat Rock | Ocean Learning & Coastal Play

Flat Rock is where children meet the ocean, its rhythm, its power and its tiny worlds tucked into the rocks. This series gently strengthens courage, awareness and ocean confidence while keeping the learning playful and grounded.

Children Explore

• Rock pools filled with crabs, fish, shells and seaweed
• Stories of tides, waves and coastal creatures
• How to observe the ocean and move safely around it
• Sea-inspired crafts: driftwood creations, tide clocks, sand art, seaweed weaving, shell and rock painting
• Birds of the coast: osprey, kites, gannets and terns
• Migratory animals and their natural seasons
• Coastal native food identification

Developmental Benefits

• Balance, coordination and confidence on natural terrain
• Early marine biology and pattern recognition (tides, habitats, cycles)
• Sensory integration through wind, water, light and movement
• Teamwork, problem-solving and shared discovery
• Ecological care and awareness of coastal ecosystems

Flat Rock invites children to listen to the sea, move with nature and feel at home in vast, beautiful landscapes.

Lake Ainsworth | Where Children Settle, Regulate and Rise

Tea-tree waters. Soft breezes. The hush of paperbark. This is where children find their feet, their friends, and their sense of safety.

Our Lake Series is designed for slow settling, emotional regulation, confidence-building, and attunement to the natural world.
The learning here is subtle, embodied, and beautifully effective.

Children Experience
Freshwater exploration through play-based discovery
Swimming, floating and water confidence (with life vests)
Observing lake life: frogs, dragonflies, fish, water bugs and freshwater plants

Craft and science provocations exploring:
•float and sink
•buoyancy
•freshwater ecosystems

Gentle stewardship, including:
•lake-edge care and weed awareness
•litter mindfulness
•tending to the health of the lake ecosystem

Shaded 800m bushwalk that builds stamina, resilience and curiosity

Fire and snake awareness on safe, permitted days

Natural nervous-system regulation through:
•warm tea-tree water
•filtered sunlight
•predictable, calming rhythms

Developmental Benefits
•Emotional regulation and sensory integration
•Gross-motor confidence and early swimming readiness
•Early biological science foundations
•Risk awareness and safe decision-making
•Ecological responsibility and care for freshwater systems
•Social attunement, turn-taking and deepening belonging through shared experience

Tintenbar | Killen Falls
The Lifeline of Community
Tucked at the tail end of scenic Friday Hut Road, where hinterland hills fold into rainforest, Killen Falls rests like an old heartbeat. These waters have shaped generations, the same water that moves beneath the earth, through the creeks, into our taps, and across our shared table.

This is the last whisper of the Big Scrub: oxygen-rich rainforest remnants, hidden wildlife corridors, and a waterfall system that keeps our whole community alive.

Here, children learn through the rhythm of real experience:

• How water moves, nourishes, and sustains life
• Why fresh water is finite, precious, and worth protecting
• Filtration, purification and freshwater safety skills
• The art of slowing down, relaxing, floating, breathing, resetting
• Fishing, cooking, and practical living skills
• Tracking and observing turtles, carp, eels, kingfishers and other Big Scrub creatures
• Fire, story, and shared belonging by the riverbank

Everything here invites a quieter kind of courage, the one that grows from listening, noticing, and becoming part of the landscape rather than moving through it.

Developmentally, this place teaches:
• Ecological understanding
• Patience and problem-solving
• Calm focus and sensory regulation
• Interdependence and group care
• Embodied environmental responsibility
• Reverence for natural resources

Together with the Lake and Ocean series, Killen Falls completes the water trilogy, guiding children to:

• Read landscapes
• Follow nature’s cues
• Move with confidence and care
• See ecosystems as living teachers
• Build courage through true, grounded experience