Fully updated to reflect the current status and understandings regarding outdoor provision within early childhood education frameworks across the UK, this new edition shows early years practitioners how to get the very best from outdoor play and learning for the enjoyment, health and education of young children up to age seven. This invaluable resource gives sound practical guidance for providing: play with water, sand and other natural materials; experiences with plants, growing and living things; movement and physical play; construction, imaginative and creative play; and explorations into the locality and community just beyond your garden. This full-colour third edition has been further developed to act as a comprehensive source book of relevant materials, books and resources supporting the core ingredients of high-quality outdoor provision, while each chapter also includes extensive collections of children’s picture books relating to the themes within each chapter. Playing and Learning Outdoors has become the essential practical guide to excellence in outdoor provision and pedagogy for all early years services. This lively, inspiring and accessible book will help every educator to develop truly successful and satisfying approach to learning through play outdoors for every child.

There is now a growing appreciation of the importance and value of learning through play outdoors. In a world where it is perceived that children can no longer ‘play out’ freely and safely Playing and Learning Outdoors shows early years practitioners how to pay more attention to making the most of the outdoors for the enjoyment, health and education of children from three to five years. This book will allow practitioners to develop rich and stimulating outdoor play provision in Early Years settings and enable you to feel confident to offer wonderful play experiences outdoors. Playing and Learning Outdoors offers practitioners achievable advice and support, based on approaches which are appropriate and effective for young children’s all-round well-being and development. The book includes practical advice on: movement and physical play playing with sand, natural materials and water plants, living things and growing construction, creative and imaginative play. Filled with advice and support, this lively, inspiring and accessible book will help practitioners to develop a truly practical and enjoyable approach to learning through play outdoors. With over twenty years’ experience in education, Jan White is an Education Consultant for Outdoor Provision in the Early Years and is currently associate consultant with Early Excellence and associate lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University.

It is now officially acknowledged that outdoor play is extremely important for young children's development and that a few old bikes and a climbing frame just will not do. This book shows how to develop an outdoor learning environment properly for young children and how adult supporters should behave in this space.This book offers examples of good

The aim of this text is to explore outdoor play in the early years focusing, in particular, on early years settings and young children aged 0 to 7 years.

The term ‘outdoor learning’ covers many forms of practice outside the classroom, including Forest School and outdoor play. Outdoor learning has been rapidly growing as a topic of interest for educators and parents over the last ten years, and research published in this field is also increasing. Despite the fact that we are inextricably part of the natural world, there is concern that contemporary children have become disconnected from nature and that their opportunities to access natural environments are declining. Given compelling evidence that time spent in natural places has multiple benefits for human health and wellbeing and pro-environmental behaviour (Bourn et al., 2016), there is an impetus to find ways to increase children’s exposure to and attachment to nature through their education. The chapters in this book were originally peer-reviewed articles published in Education 3–13: International Journal of Primary, Elementary and Early Years Education. They are amongst the most popular in the journal, reflecting the demand for more evidence of outcomes and high-quality information about how best to implement outdoor learning for children in this age group. The authors report qualitative and quantitative studies and consider implications of the findings for children and their development, and for the integration (or not) of natural environment contexts within school practices. Gathering this body of evidence together in a single volume enables important messages about outdoor learning’s various purposes, processes and outcomes to be more readily accessed by practitioners, policy makers and researchers.

Developing Young Children’s Mathematical Learning Outdoors provides detailed guidance and practical advice on planning mathematical experiences for young children outdoors. By examining the key features of a mathematically rich outdoor environment, it illustrates how this can motivate children in leading their own learning and mathematical thinking. Drawing upon the author’s wealth of experience, the book provides support for students and early years' practitioners in developing a deeper understanding of how to plan quality experiences, which combine pedagogy with effective practice. Covering all aspects of mathematics, it identifies meaningful contexts and shows how adults can use open-ended questions and prompts to promote children’s mathematical play outside. With rich case studies and reflective questions included throughout, as well as suggestions for useful resources to put the ideas in the book into practice, it is essential reading for all those that want to develop curious and creative mathematical thinkers in the early years.

Fully updated to reflect the current status and understandings regarding outdoor provision within early childhood education frameworks across the UK, this new edition shows early years practitioners how to get the very best from outdoor play and learning for the enjoyment, health and education of young children up to age seven. This invaluable resource gives sound practical guidance for providing: play with water, sand and other natural materials; experiences with plants, growing and living things; movement and physical play; construction, imaginative and creative play; and explorations into the locality and community just beyond your garden. This full-colour third edition has been further developed to act as a comprehensive source book of relevant materials, books and resources supporting the core ingredients of high-quality outdoor provision, while each chapter also includes extensive collections of children’s picture books relating to the themes within each chapter. Playing and Learning Outdoors has become the essential practical guide to excellence in outdoor provision and pedagogy for all early years services. This lively, inspiring and accessible book will help every educator to develop truly successful and satisfying approach to learning through play outdoors for every child.

Playing and Learning Outdoors shows early years practitioners how to get the very best from outdoor playing and learning for the enjoyment, health and education of all children from ages three to five years. Fully updated to reflect the current status and understandings regarding outdoor provision within early childhood education frameworks, this new edition will allow practitioners to develop rich and stimulating outdoor play provision in Early Years settings and enable them to feel confident to offer wonderful play experiences outdoors. Playing and Learning Outdoors offers practitioners achievable advice and support, based on approaches which are appropriate and effective for young children’s all-round well-being and development. This invaluable resource also includes practical advice on: movement and physical play playing with sand, natural materials and water plants, living things and growing construction, creative and imaginative play. This second edition also includes a brand new chapter on ‘Providing experiences beyond the garden walls’ which will urge practitioners to harness the huge potential contained in the locality (physical world) and local community (human world) around the early years setting’s own boundaries. Filled with advice and support, this lively, inspiring and accessible book will help practitioners to develop a truly practical and enjoyable approach to learning through play outdoors for all children aged from 3 to 7.

In a world where it is perceived that children can no longer 'play out' freely and safely, Playing and Learning Outdoors shows early years practitioners how to pay more attention to making good use of the outdoors for the enjoyment, health and education of children from 3 to 5 years. This book will allow practitioners to develop rich and stimulating outdoor play provision in Early Years settings and enable them to feel confident to offer wonderful play experiences outdoors. Playing and Learning Outdoors offers practitioners achievable advice and support, based on approaches which are appropriate and effective for young children's all-round well-being and development.