Upcoming Training Sessions

Sharing Ideas to Connect Children to Nature within a Naturalized Playground in the Winter

Join the Team of A Child’s World Woodlawn to play in their naturalized playground and learn how the Team continues to engage the children enrolled in their program with natural loose parts and extended experiences in the outdoors. Time will be spent indoors and outdoors. Please dress for winter play outdoors.

Date: February 4 2023; 10:00 - 11:30 am

Location: ACW Woodlawn Child Care
100 Niagara College Blvd.
Welland, ON

Cost: No cost

Click here to register online.

Inspiring New Ideas for Connecting Children to Nature Series

Session One: Risky Play Benefits and Using Tools; Thursday April 6, 2023
This webinar will discuss the premise and benefits behind risky play and how to safely incorporate it into your classroom and/or outdoor space. We will go beyond “climbing things” and discuss how to encourage students to find their potential and how to individualize risky play to each of your students.

Session Two: Setting Up Your Outdoor Play Space and Bringing Nature Inside; Thursday May 18, 2023
This webinar will discuss appropriate ways to set up your outdoor space without hindering the students’ learning or exploration. When we create a space that is too manipulated by an adult, it actually discourages creative and exploratory play.

Session Three: Macro-Modelling – Using the Children’s Interests to Build Games and Activities Outdoors; Thursday June 15, 2023
Macro-modelling is a concept created by outdoor educators to incorporate learning into daily play. This doesn’t hinder passion-driven and interest-based learning but rather enhances it and provides a deeper learning experience.

Date: Starts April 6 2023; all 3 sessions 6:30 - 8:00 pm

Location: This series is provided via webinar.

Cost: Niagara Educators $35; Outside Niagara Educators $60

Click here for full event details and to register online.

Sharing Ideas to Connect Children to Nature within a Naturalized Playground in the Spring

Join the Team of North End Co-operative Preschool to play in their naturalized playground and learn how the Team continue to engage the children enrolled in their program with loose parts and extended experiences within the outdoors. Please dress for outdoor play.

Sponsored by North End Co-operative Preschool.

Date: April 29 2022; 10 - 11:30 am

Location: North End Co-operative Preschool
677 Niagara Street
St. Catharines, Ontario
Canada

Cost: No cost

Click here to register online!

You decide!

Here is a sampling of some of our most popular sessions:

Canada Through the Seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter.
Focusing on Canada’s four seasons and including thought-provoking discussions, information sharing, tools and resources, and curriculum strategies designed to keep children active and engaged outdoors twelve months of the year.

Introducing the Elements into your Early Learning Environment: Air, Earth, Water, Fire
Incorporating the four ‘non-living’ elements into an early learning and child care setting and how this aligns with Ontario’s Early Learning Frameworks.

Exploring Nature Through Creative Experiences
Incorporating creative opportunities and nature-based experiences into early learning and child care environments and utilize the readily available gifts that Mother Nature has afforded us.

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.

Forts and Dens for Infants and Toddlers
Do you remember the great pleasure of building forts and dens when you were a child? Participants will consider a range of inexpensive resources and materials that can be utilized both indoors and outdoors to construct forts and dens.

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’.

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.

Date: You decide!

Location: Whether in person or via webinar, our sessions can be delivered for your staff team or your community.

Cost: Contact the ECCDC at 905-646-7311 or eccdc@eccdc.org for more information about any of our sessions and our Customized Training services.