Resources
In Praise of Play: Activities for Children and Families in Rural Communities
Children in rural America struggle to find time and space to play. How can rural families add more play into their children’s lives without needing a playground?
More than Mud Pies: Make a Mud Kitchen Master Class
More than Mud Pies: Making a Mud Kitchen is a fun exploration of how to use mud as a teaching tool and create your own one-of-a-kind Mud Kitchen. In this Master Class, you will: Let go of the traditional ways of teaching and find freedom with Mud Play. Make your own one-of-a-kind Mud Kitchen that sparks your children’s imaginations and engages their creative thinking. Discover and implement different ways to teach children math, science, and art using mud. Invite open-ended play and support child development in your outdoor classroom. Enjoy happy, engaged, healthy and curious children. By the end of this Master Class, your hesitation and questions about letting your children learn in the mud will be gone and you’ll be eager to jump in too!
We're constantly looking for great resources for our members. Below is a complete list of the resources we've gathered so far. You can select the types of resources you're looking for. To select more than one type of resource, hold the control button while you make your selections.
Four Seasons at a Nature Based Preschool, a resource guide for teachers of young children, is available for purchase. This resource guide offers activity suggestions that are likely to be of interest to young children. It focuses on seasonal changes in the Upper Midwest, areas of study that have been of interest to children at our preschool, and specific resources available at Dodge Nature Center.
Developed in coordination with early childhood experts and educators, Getting Little Feet Wet is designed to help educators of young children teach about water in fun, age-appropriate ways. This book from Project WET contains 11 interactive, hands-on activities for young learners to explore different aspects of water—from water properties to water sounds. Each activity offers both Pre-K and K-2 options and is correlated to educational standards. In addition, the majority of the activities can be done outside whenever weather allows.
Take steps toward environmental improvement and contribute to children’s potential for longer, healthier lives. The Go Green Rating Scale measures environmental health and safety in child care settings and evaluates categories such as air quality, cleaning products, hygiene and body-care products, pesticides, lead and other contaminants, and stewardship and green living.
Green Hearts Institute for Nature in Childhood offers resources to connect young children to nature. Founder Ken Finch speaks, teaches, writes, and consults about the value of nature play and nature preschools. Green Hearts maintains an informative web site with resources related to nature play, nature preschools, and parent resources. Also offers a newsletter and limited publications.
The quarterly Green Teacher magazine offers perspectives on the role of education in creating a sustainable future, practical articles and ready to use activities for various age levels, and reviews of dozens of new educational resources.
Growing Up WILD is an early childhood education program that builds on children’s sense of wonder about nature and invites them to explore wildlife and the world around them. Through a wide range of activities and experiences, Growing Up WILD provides an early foundation for developing positive impressions about the natural world and lifelong social and academic skills.
This book offers readers ways to use connections with nature to find strength and inspiration for their personal journeys so they can bring their best selves to their work with children.
This position paper from early Dimensions Foundation work describes a rationale for developmentally appropriate environmental education. A short synopsis of research describes the factors contributing to children’s disconnection from the natural world.
Plants are the lungs of the earth: they produce the oxygen that makes life possible, add precious moisture, and filter toxins. Houseplants can perform these essential functions in your home or office with the same efficiency as a rainforest in our biosphere.
Howtosmile.org is an award-winning, free access STEM activity website with nearly 4,000 activities for all ages. Activities can be searched by age, grade, cost, time, outdoor or physical activity, and more. Many activities have environmental themes.
Children in rural America struggle to find time and space to play. How can rural families add more play into their children’s lives without needing a playground?
Insect Lore was founded in California's San Joaquin Valley by Carlos White, an entomologist working with insects in the agricultural industry. In 1965, he was inspired to develop a kit that would allow people of all ages to witness the metamorphosis of real, live butterflies in their own homes or classrooms. Today, the Butterfly Garden includes a see-through reusable mesh habitat. In addition to butterflies, Insect Lore offers Ant, Ladybug, Silkworm, Worm and Frog Kits, as well as bug catchers, keepers, viewers, and other exciting items for bug lovers.
The PERMIE KIDs “Inspiration Grows” 26 page e-book (PDF) showcases our permaculture-oriented framework that can help you use interconnected ethical edges, natural thinking tools, community virtues and transdisciplinary concepts to cultivating the “learning landscape.”
This toolkit from the World Forum Foundation's Nature Action Collaborative and Nature Explore contains over 80 pages of activities to use with children ages 3-8 years old in early childhood and school settings. The guide is focused on positive actions that teachers and children can take together to make the world a "greener" and healthier place.
The classroom environment is an essential component for maximizing learning experiences for young children. 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.