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When it comes to planning for the first few weeks of the Autumn term with your new children I would focus on prioritising the following:

• Making sure new children feel safe and settled
• Building positive relationships with all children
• Establishing rules and expectations 
• Getting children used to the daily routine 

If you take a re-watch of my video from my Hygge Summer School you can see that I share the ways I would plan and organise the daily routine at the start of the year in Reception or nursery. 

When the time feels right for you and your children you can then start to spark new curiosities and interests by introducing these to the children. As much as I believe lots of what we teach from should come from the children I also understand that there needs to be a balance of us as educators offering the opportunity to broaden the children's knowledge through the exposure to different and new experiences. These might be linked to seasonal changes, festivals or celebrations.  ...

Many of you have now signed up to our monthly collection of Wanderlust resources delivered direct to your letter box (Begin your subscription here). With an aim to support and inspire Wanderlust learning in the home and setting each month. 

For those of you have bought our May collection (available here as a one off) I wanted to provide you with a few other simple ideas that you could do around the themes in the collection. 

1. Be a dreamer

The patch for this month is to 'Be a dreamer' which has to be one of my favourites. Isn't this what we want for all our children? Have you ever sat down and asked them what they want? Why not talk about what a dream actually is and share some of yours. Then create your very own vision board to show the things they hope for. This could be a collection of images symbolising their dreams stuck onto a piece of paper. Then place it somewhere that you will see often as this increases the chance of it happening. 

You could also have a chat about where ...

'And so the rain invites a street of colourful umbrellas to blossom.' Angela Abraham

I love the quote above and it reminds me that it's so important to see the beauty in the rain. After a very dry April the rain we received here in Yorkshire yesterday was very welcome. 

I wanted to share a few rainy day ideas for you this Spring to support your nature based practice. 

1. Head outside and smell the rain

We're often in such a race to get out of the rain, perhaps running to get inside, that we forget to actually experience the rain. Get dressed up in suitable waterproof clothing and head outside to smell and feel the rain. How does it sound? What temperature is the rain as it hits your skin (does it feel warm or cold?) What shapes do we notice the raindrops make as they hit the ground? Can you take 5 big deep breaths in and feel the rain calm your senses? As you tune in and smell the rain this is called Petrichor and it is the earthy scent produced when rain falls on dry soil. 

2....

I have had a fascination with rocks from a young age. I was always the child with my pockets full of natural treasures and would spend hours looking at what I had collected, sorting them into egg boxes or making patterns with my natural finds.

I remember as a child taking a visit with my Grandparents to the North Yorkshire sea-side town of Whitby and a shop keeper handing my a tiny piece of the gemstone Jet to admire. I loved the A school trip a few weeks later was a visit to Stump Cross Cavens, a series of underground caves in North Yorkshire which left me curious wanting to know more. 

For my 7th Birthday that year I had asked for a subscription to a magazine called Treasures of the Earth. With each monthly magazine came a different rock or gemstone to admire and learn about. When I received the Pyrite (Fools Gold) I remember being in awe of it's sparkles. 

Another fond memory I have is of my Grandad bringing home a bag of beach pebbles from the garden centre. I spent hours pickin...

The days are starting to get longer and brighter and new shoots are poking through the soil. It feels so good that Spring is on it's way!

Now feels like a good time to share some of my favourite spring resources and books (as i get asked this question a lot!) to support your nature based play. All of the resources I share on here are my personal recommendations and are not advertisements.  It is also worth noting that it has taken a few years to collect the bought resources I show in the photos and nature based play can be done so effectively without any of these too! Just get outside and use the nature around you like we did when creating our Very Hungry Caterpillars out of twigs and leaves. 

I often get asked on my training around nature based play if this is something that can be done if you're in an urban area and the answer is yes! We can do nature study by opening up the curtains and watching the birds from our window, setting up a provocation on the northern lights inside...

A little space on a shelf will be just perfect, a collection in a shoe box or even a display in the middle of your dining table. It's a wonderful way to bring the connection with the great outdoors into your home and to celebrate the season.

You could include some seasonal spotter sheets, natural number cards and ways you've recorded your sightings. 

It can be something very simple found on a walk like a pinecone, a rock, flowers from the garden or a feather.

We like to add our drawings and paintings of the natural find too or a question on some card we've been curious about.

If you have the space you can maybe add some beautiful decorations you find of nature or a postcard that lights you up.

Here is a list of where you can find all the resources used in our winter bird nature table

Winter Nature Cards

Bird Spotter Sheet

Child Voice Nature Cards

Wanderlust Child Nature Journal

Wooden small world birds

Rock card holders

Counting pebbles

Wooden bird tree slice

Autumn is the most perfect time of the year to collect natural treasures in the great outdoors. 

Some of my favourites that I mention in the Wanderlust Child Nature Journal are;

• Crab apples
• Elderberries
• Rosehips
• Pears
• Acorns
• Ferns
• Pine cones
• Conkers

I like to give children little bags to collect these in and then offer sorting trays, jars and ten frames to explore with once back in setting. You might even give your children a numbered paper bag and ask them to collect the amount on the bag. There are many ways you can then extend this further with the language you use afterwards. How many would we have if we added one more conker to the bag? What happens if we added two bags together? What would happen if an acorn fell out of the bag? How could you sort the natural items you've collected?

How about asking your children and their families to make 100 jars of loose parts? Then ask your children to make their own labels and put these out to use in your loose parts ar...

In this video from our Free 5 Day challenge (Join for FREE here) we explore how to document and support child led interests. 

By the end of our 5 days of training together you will be enthused to make learning happen outdoors and have a bank of knowledge and ideas on how to make it happen. Taking inspiration from Scandinavia.

I walk you through bringing more nature into your day through a series of short sessions and a little task for you to try. 

Day 1: Why nature based learning is needed
Day 2: Daily rhythm in nature
Day 3: Creating an environment for outdoor learning
Day 4: Child Led Learning in nature
Day 5: Provocations in nature

Kimberly 

My outstanding member Sam Goldsworthy Childminding not only features in our Wanderlust Nature Study Programme but is also one of our regular blog writers. 

We hope you enjoy her blog post this week!

This week we are writing about our favourite nature based learning ideas - as many of you are probably aware we absolutely love taking the children out and about to experience nature daily. We feel this has so many benefits such as building confidence, managing and taking their own risks, improves concentration and cognitive skills. It also provides many learning opportunities such as problem solving, outdoor maths, arts, literacy and many more.

N

 We often visit the local woods. We go to the same woodlands each time as the children are comfortable with their surroundings and they have built a rapport with these woods. We talk about the different flowers and leaves that we can see growing or fallen from the trees. This changes with the seasons so there is always something new to spot...

Today we're joined by guest blog writer Nicola Hacking (follow at the curious case of the girl and the dog) sharing her love for nature and the impact on our wellbeing. 

The importance, role and vision of outdoor access in the early years has increased in leaps and bounds over previous years. We’re seeing a move away from traditional learning, with nurseries developing fabulous free-flow access, inspiring outdoor equipment and even ones based entirely outdoors in natural spaces. Children draw in the dirt with sticks, sing from the branches of trees and snooze lazily in hammocks, snuggled up in layers of cozy clothing. Practitioners hand out hot chocolates and giggle as they sneak an extra marshmallow for themselves and try not to develop too bad a t-shirt tan.

But why the shift? Or is it something in our very souls that’s been trying to burst out?

Scientific research tells us that time spent outdoors reaps a multitude of health benefits. These include improved blood pressur...