Resources
Nature Play Lifestyle
Nature Play Lifestyle provides guidance and support to engage young learners in connecting to the natural world. This YouTube Channel is more than a place to provide tips and tricks to help support others in the field, it's a community. We come together to share ideas and I guide conversations about what I've learned as a nature preschool teacher over the last 10 years. I post videos every Wednesday and Saturday.
Supporting Children Outdoors: Tips and Tricks from a Nature Play Professional
This workshop will help to guide you in how to support your young learners in connecting to the natural world. We will discuss what nature play can look like, provide supportive tips on how to get started and offer ideas for hands on tools to bring outside to inspire nature play. This workshop is perfect for a nature based educators and caregivers of young learners.
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.
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. The guide is focused on actions that teachers and children can take together to make the world a "greener" and healthier place.
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.
A peer-reviewed open-access electronic journal promoting early childhood environmental education for global readership and action.
This book is designed to initiate dialog between parents and educators, and their kids, to get children thinking critically about what it means to be prepared, and invites them to share their perspective on planning for the outdoors. In this action-filled, outdoor education adventure book learn about being prepared for safety, protection and emergencies in nature.
KinderNature's Activities page provides great resources for educational group activity ideas for any time of the year.
Find one hundred creative and clever ideas repurposing common household objects into fun, educational, and safe toys and activities for young children. They benefit children's early learning by promoting sensory perception and development in multiple communication areas.
In the full-color Learning Is in Bloom, teachers and caregivers will find 40 hands-on activities effective in engaging young children in investigating nature, both indoors and outdoors, on the school grounds, and on excursions around the neighborhood.
Learning With Nature DVD is a joyful celebration of ways to use outdoor classrooms as an integral part of children's daily learning. See how well-designed outdoor spaces facilitate children's overall development socially, emotionally, physically and intellectually. Gain insight into ways to help children make deeper connections with the natural world. 23 minutes.
Book by Dimensions Educational Research Foundation, Nancy Rosenow, James R. Wike, Valerie Cuppens
Learning withOutdoors is a free educational resource for parents and educators to help teach children developmental skills and curriculum content while being immersed in nature. The website is run by two nature-based teachers, with the goal of helping parents and educators utilize the endless learning opportunities found in nature. Learning withOutdoors provides nature-based educational activities, songs and books (with learning extension ideas), and weekly curiosities to support children’s learning in the outdoors. Learning is meant to be fun and messy, preferably withoutdoors!
PEAK is a series of activities that interactively teach elementary school youth the seven principles of Leave No Trace. It is designed to educate children about the outdoors and responsible use of our shared public lands.
Lens on Outdoor Learning includes information to structure and support outdoor experiences, an explanation of how each learning standard relates to outdoor learning, and inspiration to connect children to the natural world.
Want to fix up your play space? Need to design a brand-new one? Then this delightful new book by a leading play space designer is for you! Offers practical advice on providing a safe yet challenging outdoor environment, including step-by-step instruction on how to assess your play space.
Here is a FREE resource to print, share, or link to. It is a pre-school level picture book with one-word titles translated into multiple languages. For a preschool age child, these are activities and words provide a skill building and language developmental opportunity to prepare them for kindergarten.
There is little more important in our physical world than earth and water and they are truly intriguing things, especially when they interact. Mixing soil, water and a range of other natural materials has a foundational role in early childhood which has deep importance and endless possibilities for well-being, development and learning.