You Decide!

Here is a sampling of some of our most popular nature-based learning sessions.

Taking Emergent Literacy Outdoors
Since 2014, How Does Learning Happen? Ontario’s Pedagogy for the Early Years has been encouraging educators to move away from viewing outdoor spaces as places for children to blow off steam and towards seeing outdoor environments as places for discovery and learning. However, research indicates that outdoor experiences afforded to children tend to focus on physical activity, science, and math at the expense of emergent literacy. Would you like to gain strategies to enhance the outdoor experiences that you offer children to support emergent literacy?

Outdoor Play for Infants and Toddlers (Part of our Nurturing Brilliant Minds Series)
This session will consider how educators can look to provide cost-effective outdoor play experiences for the youngest children in their care. We will also explore how educators can enhance their existing outdoor environments by incorporating the four natural elements for sensory-rich experiences that will enhance play, promote exploration, and provide a sense of wonder for both mobile and nonmobile children.

Fort and Den Building
Do you remember the great pleasure of building forts when you were a child? Rekindle those childhood memories and the pleasures of fort building. This hands-on, practical workshop will look at the importance and benefits of building forts (and dens) for preschool age children and how this supports Ontario’s Early Learning Frameworks.

Fort and Den Building for Older Children
Do you remember the great pleasure of building forts and dens as a child? Would you like to incorporate or build on your current experience with fort and den building experiences? Together, we will consider the benefits and how this reflects the four foundations highlighted in How Does Learning Happen? Ontario’s Pedagogy for the Early Years.

Outdoor Play for School Age Children (Part of our Speaking the Languages of School Age Children Series)
The session will look at a variety of low and no cost materials and authentic tools that can be utilized to provide open-ended experiences in the great outdoors, along with experiences that adapt an outdoor, co-learning approach. This session considers
how outdoor play changes as children get older and how to meet the needs of a varied age range.

Canada Through the Seasons
Studies have shown the importance of providing young children with physical fitness activities, connecting with nature and the opportunity for engaging in playful experiences outdoors whatever the weather or the season. This four-part series will focus on each of Canada’s four seasons and include thought-provoking discussions, information sharing, tools, and resources for review as well as curriculum strategies designed to keep children active and engaged in our outdoor environments during all twelve
months of the year.

Introducing the Four Elements into your Early Learning Environment
Research has highlighted the importance of children having contact with the natural environment. Find out what this means in practice and how you can incorporate it into everyday activities. This four-part series will look at how educators can incorporate the four ‘non-living’ elements: Air, Water, Fire, and Earth into an early learning and child care setting and
how this aligns with Ontario’s Early Learning Frameworks: Early Learning for Every Child Today and How Does Learning Happen?

Exploring Nature Through Creative Experiences
This workshop will explore how educators can incorporate creative opportunities and nature-based experiences into their early learning and child care environments which utilize the readily available gifts that Mother Nature has afforded us. This workshop will support educators to connect with the outdoor environment and minimize the impact that materials, children, and
educators have on the environment.

Bringing Nature Education to Your Playground Series
Explore the benefits of children having opportunities to engage in outdoor experiences, play types, the difference between an experience and an activity, theory of Loose Parts, Messing About, and Higher Order Thinking Prompts etc. Conversations around the importance of risk in play. Experiences linked to air, earth, water and fire.

Creating Outdoor Learning Programs
Educators across Ontario have been embracing the move from traditional playgrounds to naturalized outdoor play spaces that amaze and inspire children, educators, families and communities. If you are looking to create a unique outdoor learning program that truly connects children to nature, this series, based on Eric Nelson’s book Cultivating Outdoor Classrooms is for you.

Naturalizing Your Indoor Early Learning & Child Care Environment
We have become familiar with the term ‘the environment is the third educator’ and we are moving away from traditional, brightly coloured environments with an abundance of synthetic materials towards natural indoor environments. This workshop will consider how educators can enhance their existing early learning and child care environments by bringing ‘the outdoors indoors’.

Take it Outside! A Nature Perspective Series
Created to help educators navigate the outdoors and offer opportunities to engage with loose parts, explore in all weathers, and encourage opportunities for children to challenge themselves to take a risk.
Session 1: Innovative Ways to Use Natural Loose Parts – Develop an understanding of what natural loose parts are and their importance to children’s development and play experiences.
Session 2: Outdoor Play Throughout the Year – As Canadians, we are fortunate to have four distinct seasons in which to incorporate outdoor play. We will also look at global outdoor play trends and other related concepts for our outdoor programs.
Session 3: Risky Play Throughout the Day – Explore what risk is and develop an understanding of risky play. What would be the implications of risk-averse attitudes towards play?

The ECCDC’s Top 20 Strategies for Naturalizing Your Early Learning Environments
This workshop is specially designed to support educators designing innovative indoor and outdoor environments. Participants will receive 20 of our best strategies in bringing natural, open-ended materials into early learning environments.