Clare Devlin, Early Education Associate What aspects of physical development should we focus on within the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and other early years curricula? In this article, I explore the importance of physicality at this crucial point in a child’s development. The article explores two key aspects, “moving and handling” and “self-care”. It […]
by Kathryn Solly The benefits of outdoor learning in the early years have now been firmly recognised for both educators and young children’s learning and development. Being outside in the fresh air for three hours every day helps benefit brain and body functioning. Simply being outside improves health, social and emotional wellbeing, improved immunity, sight, […]
The Families’ Access to Nature Project was undertaken by the Froebel Trust and Early Education between October 2021 and January 2022. Children, their parents, and their early years educators talked to us about their access to nature and being outside together. The document below summarises key findings from the project for early years practitioners interested […]
Guest blog by Sara Knight Why are opportunities for risk and adventure essential for normal development in the early years? Tim Gill (2007) identifies four arguments: helping children to learn how to manage risk (understanding safety) feeding children’s innate need for risk with reasonable risks in order to prevent them finding greater unmanaged risks for […]
Why go outside? Big movers Have you ever been in an open space with young children? The first thing they want to do is to break away from your hand and run! They are born with the desire to move, and open space is exciting. Learning to move is not just about making muscles strong, […]
When writing our January Early Years Teaching News, I tweeted a survey to ask if practitioners and leaders would like information about ICT or outside play. Sixty-nine percent voted for outside play and when seeing this, Kathryn Solly, Early Education Associate, outdoors expert, consultant and author, offered to help write something for us. Outdoor play: pedagogic […]
Little or no equipment is needed to get children active in the park – not even the play equipment that’s probably already there! If there is play equipment, encourage children to use it in new and challenging ways (eg walk up the slide, hang upside down from the monkey bars). For all of these actions, the Outdoors […]
Are children at your setting moving enough? Do they enjoy plenty of physically active outdoor play? The Newham Outdoors and Active practitioners spent eight months working through an action research project in order to identify the best ways to get their children moving and in touch with their own bodies. Here’s how you could do […]
Some of the childminders involved in the Outdoors and Active project thought that a kit of easy to carry, low cost resources could encourage children to be more active in the park, in their gardens or even just out and about on daily walks. They tested different kinds of containers for the kits and observed […]
This content by Jan White comes from our out of print leaflet “The Sky is the Limit: Babies and Toddlers Outdoors: developing thinking, provision and practice” Babies need to be outdoors This is a time of astounding development of the senses, mind and body. During this year, babies gradually gain command of their body, developing the […]
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