Books

This updated and expanded edition of The Great Outdoors will inspire teachers to make it possible for children to spend more time outdoors, have safe environments, and be free to learn through exploration.

This book is based on the understanding that fostering a sense of wonder and appreciation for the natural world is important to the development of young children and the preservation of planet Earth. It is also based on the belief that experiences children have early in life impact the attitudes and behaviors they carry with them throughout their lifetime.

Playing and Learning Outdoors shows early years practitioners how to get the very best from outdoor playing and learning for the enjoyment, health and education of all children from ages three to five years. This invaluable resource also includes practical advice on movement and physical play; playing with sand, natural materials, and water; plants, living things, and growing; and construction, creativity, and imaginative play.

Standards provide important benchmarks for student learning, but meeting them doesn’t mean you have to take away creativity, lively participation, and joyful learning. This resource offers strategies to address content standards in ways that nurture kindergartners’ natural love of learning.

The book introduces the approach and provides step-by-step guidance for conducting meaningful projects. You will find teacher interviews, children’s work, photographs, and teacher journal entries used to document the project in actual classrooms. New features include technology, nature experiences, and expanded toddler projects.

Responding to current debates on the place of play in schools, authors explain how and why play is a critical part of development, as well as the central role adults have to promote it. This practitioner resource offers systematic descriptions and analyses of the different roles a teacher adopts to support play.

Inspiring Spaces for Young Children invites teachers to enhance children’s educational environment in a beautiful way by emphasizing aesthetic environmental qualities that are often overlooked in early childhood classrooms, such as nature, color, furnishings, textures, displays, lighting, and focal points.

Nationally recognized naturalist and artist Clare Walker Leslie has been igniting kids curiosity about nature for more than 30 years. Her approach combines directed observational activities with journaling and field-note prompts designed to nurture the next generation of nature lovers and environmentalists.

In this unique collaboration, two naturalists ask what may happen now that so many more children are denied exposure to wildness than at any other time in human history.

From advising parents to foster creativity to guiding them in “power-sharing” techniques to resolve conflicts and generate empathy, Carlsson-Paige offers steps parents can take to create time and space for creative play, a feeling of safety in today’s often frightening world, and meaningful relationships with both adults and other children.

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