Resources
Place-Based Scientific Inquiry: A Practical Handbook for Teaching Outside
Cover image for book Place Based Scientific Inquiry, showing three students touching a soil sample
A new open-access book for educators focused on justice-first and place-based scientific inquiry, following best practices from the Next Generation Science Standards.
How-to Guide for Caregiver & Child Classes
7 Recorded Sessions, View at Your Own Pace Inspired by LEAP Outside, this wonderful, one-of-a-kind resource is for those who wish to create a community-based infant/toddler/preK program. Includes four seasons of lesson plans, pre-recorded coaching sessions from LEAP founder Evie Wilkinson, and MANY, MANY downloadable shortcuts.
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.
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.
The Outdoor Classroom Project offers training, consulting, and design services for creating outdoor classrooms. Focused mostly in California, the organization maintains demonstration sites people can visit to see outdoor classrooms in action.
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.
A Scandinavian Mom's Secrets for Raising Healthy, Resilient, and Confident Kids--and a parenting memoir and a great read for anybody who is interested in nature-based early childhood education, parents as well as teachers.
Project Learning Tree’s Trees & Me: Activities for Exploring Nature with Young Children combines the fascination that children ages 1–6 have for trees with research-based findings about the lifelong benefits of early exposure to nature.
Billy B., the natural science song and dance man, helps preschoolers become more aware of the world around them with self-help and nature songs.
Wild Learning: Practical Ideas to Bring Teaching Outdoors
Wild Learning: Practical Ideas to Bring Teaching Outdoors
Wild Learning provides practical, easy-to-implement activities that bring core curriculum out of the classroom and into the outdoors. This book gives teachers practical activities that they can immediately implement, and helps educators overcome common barriers to outdoor instruction.
Wild Math® reimagines K-5 math instruction for the natural outdoor environment. Fractions are modeled using mud pies, place value is introduced with bundles of sticks, multiplication is introduced by examining flower petals, and games replace worksheets.
Through this family’s experiences, we observe how free play in nature hones a sense of wonder, provides healthy challenges, and nurtures earth stewardship. “Parents need to support kids’ access to independent outdoor play,” says Sobel. “Of course they should use judgment, but the benefits outweigh the risks.”
Overflowing with tips for successfully gardening with children in school and community settings, Wings, Worms, and Wonder also includes 36 child tested lesson plans, you’ll find everything you need to seamlessly integrate gardening into both elementary curricula and daily life.
Wonder is the bimonthly newsletter of the World Forum Foundation's Nature Action Collaborative for Children. The newsletter is free and can be downloaded online and is also printed in Exchange magazine.
Seek child tested and parent/teacher approved activities that capture children’s attention. Inside, find nearly 100 activities, creative projects, and games, as well as garden and outdoor advice and ample resources to set you up for being-outdoors-with-young-children success in all weather and seasons!
Wonderkin offers educational activity kits designed to support early childhood development by getting kids outdoors and connected to nature. Our carefully curated boxes arrive on your doorstep to jumpstart engaging outdoor play and learning no matter where you live or how crazy your schedule is. For ages 3 - 8.
Young Children is the journal of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). The magazine is published bimonthly and serves as a forum for early childhood educators. The magazine often includes articles of interest in early childhood environmental education.
2nd edition of 'Young Children and the Environment: Early Education for Sustainability', edited by Australian early childhood academic, Julie M. Davis, published by Cambridge University Press.