The Natural Start Alliance offers hour-long webinars on topics of key interest to early childhood professionals that aim to support the programs in this growing field.
Upcoming webinars will be listed below and recordings will be posted, after the event.
Natural Start reached out to members to learn how nature preschools are prioritizing equity and diversity through their enrollment process. We heard back from programs employing a variety of strategies for attracting and enrolling racially and economically diverse families, including administrative policies, marketing and outreach, community partnerships, accessing state pre-K funding, and more.
This webinar draws from the extensive research of Dr. Deja Jones, Founder of Honeypot Montessori, and the hands-on expertise of Ashley Causey-Golden, co-founder of Gather Forest School. This webinar focused on the collaborative creation of outdoor play areas tailored for Black children between the ages of 3 and 6 and explore the practical implementation of research in this domain.
"Do You See What I See?" provides a look at NASA’s nature-based explorations for young minds that build upon their natural curiosity. Webinar provides a variety of nature-based learning activities designed to foster a natural sense of curiosity through the development of observation skills that encourage young minds to ask questions and explore the natural world using their senses.
The Natural Start Alliance partnered with the Evanston Public Library to bring you the best in children’s books about nature connection and environmental stewardship. The Blueberry Award is a relatively new literary award that honors books about nature — the first of its kind. The Award committee reviewed books from 2022, sharing the latest and greatest with our community!
How do you create fun, authentic outdoor learning experiences for the littlest learners in your life? In this webinar, co-hosted by Project Learning Tree, we explore activities from PLT’s newest resource for parents and educators of young children, Trees & Me. Whether you’re dipping your toe into outdoor learning or you're an experienced outdoor educator seeking tried and true activities for Earth Day and beyond, this webinar is for you!
The Natural Start Alliance partnered with the National Farm to School Network for the webinar, “Aligning Outdoor Learning & Farm to ECE.” Explore resources for connecting Farm to Early Care and Education and outdoor learning.
The Natural Start Alliance teamed up with the Evanston Public Library to shine a spotlight on the Blueberry Book Awards. View a recording of the live event and get familiar with some excellent nature books for young children!
The Natural Start Alliance teamed up with the Evanston Public Library to shine a spotlight on the Blueberry Awards, a new literary award that honors books about nature. Panelists examined what makes a children’s book about nature stand out, how books written for young children are exploring nature connection, sustainability, and environmental stewardship, and why that matters, especially now. View the webinar recording for a look at the best children’s literature about nature, as designated by a committee of librarians and environmentalists. You’ll walk away with new ideas about the power of story and a list of books to add to your classroom library!
In this interactive webinar, presenters provided strategies to facilitate students' interaction with nature, particularly with students who live in areas where substantial inequities exist between children and their lack of access to a clean and healthy environment.
In this webinar, the Natural Start Alliance, National Wildlife Federation's Early Childhood Health Outdoors (ECHO), and members of the Seven November team (a strategic communications firm) share the findings from a comprehensive messaging analysis initiative around early childhood education.
The Natural Start Alliance collaborates with state and regional groups around the country to advocate for and promote outdoor learning as a high-quality approach to early childhood education. These groups work from the very local to the regional level to support and provide training to educators all along the outdoor learning spectrum, from those just stepping outdoors with their students for the first time to those operating nature-based preschools. This forum features the Minnesota Early Childhood Outdoors (MnECO), sharing their success in partnering with the Minnesota Department of Education to develop outdoor learning resources for all early childhood educators.
This Natural Start forum explores reflective practice and how it can help educators work through difficult and emotional professional challenges and the stress of teaching.
