the blog: on education outside

Teaching Prep Outside.
Getting Started

Teaching Prep Outside

My role as a teacher is always evolving. Over the past 25 years, I’ve taught just about every grade in public elementary schools across two

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Easy lavender playdough
Loose Parts

Easy Lavender Playdough

Playdough is surprisingly entertaining for kids of all ages. Adding lavender playdough as a sensorial play opportunity in the school garden becomes a delightful way

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Play Research Group
Play Research

Play Research Group: beginnings

Our first play research group meeting on intersecting and overlapping topics relevant to child well-being was full of informal discussion and brainstorming about the scope of

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Teaching Prep Outside.

Teaching Prep Outside

My role as a teacher is always evolving. Over the past 25 years, I’ve taught just about every grade in public elementary schools across two provinces. For the past seven years my role has been teaching prep outside. This position emerged through an innovative re-think of how we allocate prep

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School Garden Soil Resources

This post is the second in a series of posts with resources for teachers teaching across the curriculum in their school gardens. This post lists some of the resources shared on the topic of soil science in school gardens from session two of the garden classroom series. If you are

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School Garden Weed Resources

This post is one of a series of posts listing resources available to teachers seeking tools for teaching across the curriculum in their school gardens. This post lists some of the resources shared on the topic of weed management in school gardens from session one of the garden classroom series.

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Play Research Group: Children As Catalysts for Social Capital

During our final August PLAY Journal group meeting, we reviewed the article “Through the Kids . . . We Connected With Our Community”: Children as Catalysts of Social Capital (Wood et al., 2011) and discussed the social implications of demographic shifts in urban communities. Social Capital Social capital, defined by

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Play Research Group: Risky Play In Schools

For our July 25 play research study group meeting, I presented slides from a presentation given at a recent Canadian Association of School System Administrators (CASSA 2019) conference sharing what opportunities for risky play in schools can look like across the province of BC. It was a conversational hour with

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Best Books Supporting Loose Parts Play Outdoors

Loose parts are found or natural objects that have no specific instructions for play and are highly valued for their imaginative and creative affordances for play. For children who are new to loose parts play outdoors, it can help to introduce them in small quantities. I have found that for

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Easy lavender playdough

Easy Lavender Playdough

Playdough is surprisingly entertaining for kids of all ages. Adding lavender playdough as a sensorial play opportunity in the school garden becomes a delightful way to integrate student learning and core competency skill development with the natural world.  This simple play staple engages children in imaginative play while increasing communication,

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Play Research Group

Play Research Group: beginnings

Our first play research group meeting on intersecting and overlapping topics relevant to child well-being was full of informal discussion and brainstorming about the scope of the play research group, possible formats, and what everyone was hoping to get out of it. A list of topics of interest included: Child-friendliness, human

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Not A Stick

Not a Stick: Ordinary Objects Inspire Free Thinking

Thank you to Rene Gualtieri for contributions to this post! Not A Stick Play Having worked at a nature camp, I am very aware of the hesitation towards allowing children to pick up and play with sticks. It was a concern raised by parents and staff alike due to potential

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