This blog from the Tinkergarten community, supports families, leaders and those attending Tinkergarten outdoor playgroups. Blog posts are categorised for ease of use and include early learning, parenting, nature, meet our team and #OutdoorsAll4 which encourages outdoor play throughout all seasons.
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This episode of the Sage Family Podcast is an engaging interview with Peter Gray, Evolutionary Psychologist, blogger and author of the inspiring book Free to Learn. Peter explains why the adult way of looking at childhood can have a negative impact on childhood learning and the consequences of disallowing inoculations of risk. Peter is a research professor of psychology at Boston College and founding board member and president of the alliance for self-directed education.
Subject Area: Risky Play
Kathleen Lockyer, creator of the Nature-Led Approach is an Occupational Therapist of 20 years experience and a leader in Sensory Processing Disorders and Therapeutic Listening. She is also a Naturalist, Herbalist and mother of two teenage women. Kathleen has dedicated her life to creating programs and trainings to facilitate child development by using routines of Sensory Processing and Integration in the natural world. Kathleen is a self proclaimed “fierce protector of children and childhood” and her empowering blog and mentorship program is a light in the storm for parents & educators with sensitive children.
Subject Area: Occupational Therapy
This enchanting App allows you to explore galaxies, stars, constellations, planets, and satellites above you with a point of your phone. It can be used during the day but it really comes alive in the night sky. With an etherial backing track, your children will be amazed at what they see, learn star names and map the sky track of objects with the Sky Path feature. Additional features are Night Mode to preserve your night vision and Social to take and share images with friends through social media. WiFi is not required to function so you can take it camping, sailing or even on a plane. Stargazing is a great outdoor family activity that can be enjoyed from the comfort of your backyard.
With this App you need never be lost in a National Park, nor chewing through data trying to find your way out. Avenza allows you to download a selection of free or paid maps, then view and use them offline. You can record your movements including speed and elevation, track it in realtime and export the data. Drop place markers at your location and measure the distance to an end point to work out how far you are from your destination. Avenza Maps allows you to take photos and plot them in your map and search for points of interest. There is an optional Pro subscription with advanced features but the average nature playing family will find the free version more than sufficient. Remember to familiarise yourself with the features in this App before you set off and ensure you have a fully charged battery on your device.
One of the most comprehensive field guides to Australian birds is now available in App form as either a paid (large download) or free ‘Lite’ version with reduced content. Features of the full version include 3000 hi-res bird images covering 790 bird species, detailed text descriptions including measurements and breeding behaviour, 1800 clear sound recordings for 600 species, the ability to filter a search by geographic location, the ability to compare any two images, maps, or sounds, side by side on the screen, a “Smart Search” to help identify a bird by distinguishing features, a personal species list that saves your bird sightings to your device and easy to use optimised controls. By eliminating the need for heavy reference books, this App is an indispensable field resource for early enthusiasts and serious birders alike.
This easy to use App from FrogWatch SA contains a regional catalogue of frogs found in South Australia with species identification information including full colour photos and frog call audio. It also gives users the chance to contribute valuable habitat information to a public online database via the Frog Survey tool. The survey tool has provision to auto capture your location via GPS, allows for audio recording, picture taking and habitat information collection for each survey conducted. You can create groups, submit your surveys and read other people’s surveys easily from a map view.
Tim Gill is an independent scholar, advocate and consultant on childhood. His website and blog focuses on the changing nature of children’s play and free time, and their evolving relationships with the people and places around them. Tim argues for a balanced, thoughtful approach to risk in childhood: a position set out in his 2007 book No Fear: Growing up in a risk averse society Tim is a longstanding advocate for child-friendly urban planning and design and supporter of the Playing Out movement.
Subject Area: Risk, urban planning
Do you like the idea of your children being able to play freely outside their own front door? Playing Out began with discussions amongst like-minded parents in South Bristol, UK. As their children grew, the parents started to feel frustrated that their freedom to play outside was so limited, being close to the city centre with few green spaces. Two mums came up with the idea that they could take the street party model and apply to close their street to traffic one day after school, giving the road over to the children to play in. The success of this initial event generated much discussion and media coverage both nationally and internationally and Playing Out was born. This website hosts an active blog and instructionals on how to organise your own Playing Out session.
Subject Area: Street Play
When Joseph Cornell’s first book, Sharing Nature with Children, was published in 1979, it was met with universal acclaim. J. Baldwin, editor of Whole Earth Review, wrote, “This is absolutely the best awareness-of-nature book I’ve ever seen. Sharing Nature with Children has become justly famous because it works.” Joseph Cornell’s books sparked a world wide movement called Sharing Nature, devoted to helping children and adults deepen their relationship with the natural environment. This website contains high quality resources, exercises you can do with children to bring awareness of nature, detailed information on Flow Learning™ principles, thought provoking articles and online training. Full of inspiration for educators, the Sharing Nature movement uses the Flow Learning™ system of teaching that encourages empathy and brings ecological principles to life.
After the publication of “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder” in 2005, author Richard Louv and others co-founded the Children & Nature Network, a nonprofit organisation whose mission is to fuel the worldwide grassroots movement to reconnect children with nature. The Children & Nature Network aims to connect all children, their families and communities to nature through innovative ideas, evidence-based resources and tools, broad-based collaboration and support of grassroots leadership.
Nature Play Canberra is about getting more children outdoors more often so they can reap the benefits of unstructured playing, learning and being physically active. Includes resources for schools, families and research links.
This website run by author, blogger, TV personality and activitist Lenore Skenazy discusses how to raise safe, self reliant kids without going nuts with worry. Parents are encouraged to let their children have more opportunities to be independent, spend time on their own and explore age appropriate risks with the knowledge that making mistakes and learning from them are valuable life experiences.
This new collaborative venture from Free Range Kids author and blogger Lenore Skenazy, research professor Peter Gary and others, supports the idea that children are smart, strong and capable yet they are in danger of not being able to practice problem solving with adults always hovering around solving problems first. They believe in giving children the freedom and opportunity to take risks, deal with disappointment, figure things out and make their way in the world as all generations before them have done, up until now. Witty, informed, some would say controversial, but always thought provoking content.
Nature Play QLD is a collaborative organisation, working with partner groups to encourage the Queensland community to value nature play and support families to prioritise it in children’s lives. They are advocates of the nature play message and aim to increase access to nature play resources, events and programs for Queenslanders.
Nature Play WA was conceived on the belief that unstructured play outdoors (nature play) is fundamental to a full and healthy childhood. The organisation began as an initiative of the Western Australian Department of Sport and Recreation and was inspired by the ideas of American social commentator Richard Louv and the Children and Nature Network. This website has many good resources including things to do, places to go and free resources for families.
Circle of Life Rediscovery offer outdoor learning programs, camps and events in the UK. This blog supports their programs, giving insight, information and ideas for forest school and adventure activities including The Woodland Project which provides children with disabilities and their families the opportunity to learn new skills, uncover hidden talents and spend quality time together at peace, in nature.
The authors of the Going Wild books bring this blog to families and communities, full of great Wild Play suggestions for all weather conditions and even after dark. Includes ideas for weekend screen free challenges and research links.
Sarah Blackwell is the Founder and CEO of Forest Schools Education, Forest Schools Kindergarten and Archimedes Earth as well as a well-known public speaker in the field of alternative education and outdoor learning. With over 30 years’ experience supporting outdoor play and learning, Sarah’s blog has many resources, links and discussion around the latest research and hot topics.
Launched in 2015 for anyone interested in outdoor learning, this blog has many contributors building on a collaborative model to raise awareness of quality examples of evidence and delivery of learning outside the classroom (LOtC). Key topics are based around themes and challenges including use of school grounds, use of local green spaces, building teacher confidence, embedding outdoor teaching into the curriculum, looking at evidence around benefits of learning outdoors and health and wellbeing.
Centennial Parklands is a collection of three adjoining major urban parks in Sydney, NSW. It is also home to Bush School, a hands on 5 week experiential learning program for pre-schoolers. The blog tag follows the nature play happenings around the park lands, inclusive practices, inspiration for families and educators to get outdoors for Wild Play.
A great outdoor learning resource from Canada. Includes lesson plans by age group, lists for learning kits, outdoor teaching strategies and a reference sheet detailing the benefits of incorporating nearby nature into the everyday curriculum.
A collection of ideas, resources and reviews of some of the world’s most inspiring play spaces from the turn of the century up to the present day. This blog was started out of frustration by Paige Johnson who was tasked with looking into options for her local church’s playground. After finding an uninspiring selection of equipment starting from $25,000. She knew from her background in landscape history that many artists and designers had made creative playspaces from the 50s but was unable to find reference to them online. Eventually Paige found what she was looking for and built this website. Includes sections on design, art for play spaces and playground history.
This blog offers support, connection and guidance to help get families outside with their baby as soon as they feel ready. Geared to parents with children from birth to school age with the aim of raising a new generation of children to love the outdoors. Highly commended blog which started in July of 2013, when Founder Shanti Hodges asked her new born parent group to meet up in a park. In the first months these were casual hikes among friends. As the number of families participating grew, it became apparent that the desire to get outside was much more than Shanti expected. Through the help of an ever-increasing group of volunteers, Hike it Baby grew from a small parent group to a large community of families. In 2016 Hike it Baby filed for non-profit status.
This site came out in support of the Project Wild Thing documentary which demonstrated just how little outdoor time UK children were getting on average each day. Their mission is to create new paths to help get children thriving, outdoors in nature by supporting families, schools and communities to get more Wild Time in their lives. Includes prompts for outdoor play, an app for parents and outdoor teaching resources.
Blogger Michael Lanza, former Northwest Editor of Backpacker Magazine, created this blog with the simple mission: to offer stories, photos, and expert trip-planning advice on the world’s best outdoor adventures—including many that are great for families. Full of very experienced advice for your outdoor adventures including 10 tips for raising outdoors loving kids, 10 tips for getting your teenagers outdoors with you, and the author’s 10 rules for adventure travel.
Creator of PJ’s Backyard Adventures, Rebeccca P. Cohen’s blog is full of gratitude and inspiration for getting outside with your children, even if it is just for 15 minutes each day. Lots of free resources and ideas for things like outdoor birthday parties through the seasons.
Take your pick of blogs from this Forest School from early years to upper primary classes giving a unique insight into school activities and curriculum enrichment programs. See how they incorporate nature and outdoor learning into the whole primary curriculum
Full of great images of children at work/play in forest school. Includes many seasonal ideas for outdoor learning activities in the early years.
Featuring an assortment of high calibre contributors from the world wide nature play movement, this blog is thought provoking, inspiring and full of great personal stories from childhood and parenting adventures.
Blogger Suz Lipman began this blog when she realised that so many parents around her were rushing to and from organised activities and not finding time to really connect with their children. Like the ‘slow food’ movement, slow parenting is about connecting or reconnecting to that part of yourself and your family that somehow got lost in the shuffle of busy lives. Full of great ideas and resources to reduce ‘frazzle’ and take it slow.
Very active blog from radio/TV personality and parent Lenore Skenazy who crusades on behalf of children to be allowed a bit of unsupervised time to play, learn and grow. Lenore refutes the fear driven belief that children are in constant danger from kidnappers, germs, grades, frustration, failure, bugs, sleepovers and/or the perils of non-organic vegetables.
This blog aims to inspire all weather outdoor play every day. Photographer, journalist and parent Linda Akeson McGurk, grew up in Sweden where they live by the motto that there is no bad weather, only the wrong clothing. As an adult now living in America, Linda noticed how little nature connection American children seem to have. She shares stories of her family’s adventures, tips for green living, outdoor play ideas, active gear and book reviews. Really well put together resource.
This Canadian day-care facility has a strong Reggio Emilia approach and the belief that every day in every moment they, as teachers, follow the directions of the children and adapt themselves. Always observing, documenting, listening and interpreting their goals, theories and strategies to gain insight into children’s thinking; ready to make changes to support the children in their discoveries. Full of reflective practice and beautiful photographs of loose parts creations.
All weather activities and craft ideas for families including helpful ideas for gardening with children and seasonal craft using upcycled materials.
Author of Messy Maths and Dirty Teaching, Juliet Robinson’s fantastic blog is full of lesson plan ideas, resources and inspiration for primary school teachers beginning their journey into outdoor teaching and those looking to extend their current practices.
Teacher Tom (Tom Hobson) is a well-known and well respected preschool teacher, speaker, prolific blogger, author and artist from Seattle, Washington who has been teaching at Woodland Park Cooperative School for the past 15 years. Tom is a practitioner of progressive play-based education and his blog entries are full of quality content, photos and links to supporting research.