The 2011 Edublog Awards

The website is open and the nominations too! There are many educators blogging, tweeting and sharing their ideas, thoughts and resources from all over the world piling in to acknowledge the hard work and efforts by all.

Click on the logo to find out more!

However, I'd like to give a shout out to those who continue to flag up the benefits of learning and playing outdoors. At the moment, these remain predominantly early years educators, which strongly suggests that perhaps other sectors still need to wake up to the value of learning outside. In recognition of these efforts, I'm nominating the following:

Best teacher blog: Let the Children Play by Jennifer Kable

It was the outrage of last years Edublogger awards that this blog did not make the nominations shortlist. Please, please, please do one thing and submit your own nomination for this friendly and inspiring progressive preschool Australian blog which has captured the hearts and minds of tens of thousands of pre-school educators across the world. Nominations close on Friday 2nd December - HINT! HINT!)

Best individual blog: Child Central Station by Amy Ahola.
This blog highlights the contributions made by the wider education sector. Remember those homeschoolers, childminders, after-school carers who add value to, around and beyond the formal education sector. Amy's blog illustrates that these education professionals ensure children come first and that outdoor experiences really matter.

Best ed tech/resource sharing blog: Irresistible Ideas for Play Based Learning by Sherry Hutton and Donna Ridley-Burns
This duo have continued to attract huge followers, not just of their blog but their Facebook page too. They truly understand the power of pre-school practitioners to provide and share support, advice and ideas. They actively promote outdoor play - just look at the photos on their blog's header. Social media marketers could learn a thing or two from Sherry and Donna.

Best new blog: Exploring the Outdoor Classroom by Kristin from California

This blog has exploded onto the pre-school blogging world with mouth-watering photos, tasty ideas and recipes for outdoor play only previously dreamed of. It is lovely to see the passion ooze out of each post from a self-confessed "nature nut"!

Best twitter hashtag: #playoutdoors

Supporting children with play and learning is a shared task. #playoutdoors represents educators, parents, individuals and organisations who recognise this. It's a true education community providing information, support and ideas to each other via the medium of Twitter.

Best individual tweeter: DavidMiller_UK
This was a tough decision for me. I decided to step out of the outdoor category because this guy truly understands the purpose of Twitter as a tool for reaching out to, and engaging with, others. Firstly he is highly responsive to those who get in touch. Second, he provides a stream of wider thought about education in a way that can only be described as verbally tactile.

Best group blog: Pedagoo
This was set up by Fergal Kelly as a direct result of a series of tweets by a huge number of Scottish educators from students and probationers to ex-directors of education and former HMIe inspectors. It's an ad-hoc selection of posts submitted by these people who are standing up and saying "We're educators and we want the best for children and young people in our schools." It's moving things beyond rhetoric and negativity around initiatives in education.

Most influential blog post: Teacher Tom and his post Spoiled Brats
What I like about Tom Hobson is his willingness to question and write about wider issues within and beyond education yet link it to events and activities at his pre-school. He is not an Alfie Kohn echo or wannabe Ken Robinson and both would learn a lot from his personal take on educational matters. Spoiled Brats was shared over 2000 times on Facebook alone just after Tom wrote it and apparently it's still getting daily hits.

Finally there are many wonderful blogs and bloggers out there who haven't been mentioned. I wish there was space to include you all - especially those who are part of the amazing and supportive pre-school bloggers network - you know who you are!

Outdoor literacy: Letters from Sticks!

Okay, last week I blogged about sticky letters. This week it's letters made from sticks. I blame one child. I passed him in the corridor whilst I was carrying a pile of sticks. His face lit up and he asked if they were for his class. So I told him that the next time I was there, the sticks would be with me too.

We began with the story of Stick Man. This set the scene for choosing our own stick from the pile I'd brought along. Each person (including Fred the Ted) had to find the letter that matched their name and attach this to their stick. Each one has a hole drilled in it at the top - they came like this from Cosy - an education resource company (tel: 01332 987005)

To get across the message about holding sticks carefully, we came up with the chant "Sticks are down. Down with sticks." This seemed to make a difference as the children enjoyed tapping out the rhythm as we walked along.

When we came to a stopping point identified by one child, it was time to try and make each letter using sticks. I did have a stash in my bag owing to time pressures, but gathering sticks would work better as the activity would have more relevance to each child and give them an opportunity to explore their environment. However, this is a bigger challenge for another day.

This was a challenging activity for all the children. The idea of making letters from sticks was novel and new. With support they managed this activity.

Back inside, we followed up this activity by making the same letters but using lolly sticks instead. The twigs we did gather were used as decoration and the display left on the table. This was to allow children to make crayon rubbings later on that day if they wanted to.

Toulcuv Dvur Nursery in the Czech Republic

Toulcuv Dvur is best described as an urban environmental education centre. It is situated in a built up suburb of Prague. 

The nursery is in the far left corner

The founder, Emilka Strejikova, was an early years teacher who strongly believed in nature “imprinting” and the need for children to have daily contact with nature.

Thus she established an on-site nursery for forty children aged 2.5-7yrs.  The children have daily access to the rest of the grounds that make up Toulcuv Dvur in addition to the 15^th Century restored farm buildings which can be seen in the photo above. In many ways, the location could not be more perfect for a pre-school. Have a look...

Firstly, right outside the nursery itself, are the ponies that belong to a riding charity. You can get a better sense of the urban location in the photo below.

The children help take care of this garden, where they grow vegetables. It seems so spacious compared to many nurseries!  

Nearby, they also help feed the farm animals such as these cows...

This alluvial woodland was so beautiful the morning I visited, with the sunlight filtering through the trees...

Imagine being able to visit this on a regular basis! There are more diverse and interesting habitats including a wetland, agricultural land, flower meadows and an alder grove. Children from Prague schools visit Toulcuv Dvur for environmental activities. This class was learning about animals that live in woodland habitats.

There are outdoor ovens the children use within a short walking distance. I'm surprised these have never become popular in the UK. Every nursery would have so much more fun when it came to outdoors snacks! Imagine the smell of freshly baked homemade pizza!

The children are not unfamiliar with being outdoors. Parent and toddler groups meet at the environmental centre twice weekly for nature-based activities and walks. The nursery itself has a waiting list of 300. Here's the outdoor space - this is the view children get when they step outside...

The children make dens with the large branches lying around...

Like children everywhere, the mud patch is a popular place to play. The covered square in the background is the sandpit.

This is the view of the nursery from the horse field. The children go out and about beyond the nursery outdoor space daily.

There were various structures which interested me such as this raised cubby...

This shelter was still in the process of being constructed - a big space for shade and shelter.

This climbing wall, net and platform look exciting...

 The teepee is a popular gathering place....

I hope these posts about pre-schools in the Czech Republic have been interesting to read. I love hearing about practice in different places and would welcome information about outdoor play from all around the world.

Outdoor Literacy Activity: Sticky Letters

This term I have been asked to undertake literacy activities with one class. This has provided an ideal opportunity to work on lots of ways of doing this outside. I've blogged about creating letters from natural materials previously. However, we're going back a couple of steps before getting to this stage.

Last term we spent the sessions acclimatising to being outside. Fred the Ted helped us all enormously and now we have a routine that's based around moving from place to place in the school grounds and undertaking short, sweet activities including songs or games at the different stopping points. This remains organic in that the stopping places can vary. It's the journey and the joy of discovery that counts. Usually we end up at the wildlife garden which is a popular spot with all the children.

So a couple of weeks ago, I decided that sticky letters would be a start. This involves cutting up a few pieces of cardboard and sticking double sided sticky tape onto them. We used the initial letter of each child's name.

I was a little worried in that when the yellow paper is removed, the children would not be able to see the outline of their letter. This did not seem to be a problem. It was a dry day so the material stuck to the cardboard quite nicely.

My other concern was whether the children would recognise a rough-and-ready letter rather than a beautifully drawn example. When I handed these out, it was a relief to see that most of the children did indeed recognise their letter.

When the children are playing in the wildlife garden, I'm interested that the books and clipboards remain an attraction. I think it provides a focus for a little quiet reflection and contemplation. But I'm not sure. Often a couple of boys will walk around the garden making notes and looking important.

For me, I'm just pleased that the children are enjoying and responding to literacy outdoors. I can't think of a more natural approach...

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This post is part of the outdoor play party link up

Education Scotland Outdoor Learning Resource

"We're not saying goodbye to our classrooms, we're opening them up." Simon Beames

This is the blog post I've been wanting to write for months. Earlier this year Creative STAR gained the contract to write an outdoor learning resource pack on behalf of Learning Teaching Scotland (now Education Scotland).

To quote the introduction, "The purpose of this resource is to provide practical, accessible and straightforward advice for teachers and practitioners to engage children and young people with learning outdoors. It is part of achieving a wider objective of supporting the implementation of the guidance document Curriculum for Excellence through Outdoor Learning.


The resource introduces practitioners who are not familiar with outdoor learning to exploring ways of taking children outside. It provides a route into continuing professional development and suggestions for embedding outdoor learning as a whole school approach. It serves to illustrate the potential of outdoor learning as an effective approach to learning and teaching within the context of Curriculum for Excellence."

It's a pretty sizeable piece of work with links to many different aspects of education. I'm particularly pleased because the resource demonstrates how learning and play outside can make a positive difference to so many aspects of children's lives and add depth and value to their experience of education. It flags up the benefits of free play, especially in natural places and the need for children to experience risk, challenge and adventure. Please don't sanitise school experiences any longer!

If you are not based in Scotland, there's still lots of useful information. Jump to the back of the document to have a look at the training activities that are designed to help adults understand the benefits of outdoor learning and play. This includes building towers with stones and lego, drinking tea and eating chocolate!

The second part of the resource is much shorter. It's called Building your Curriculum: Outside and In. It's  created to help schools and centres think about where they are in terms of embedding outdoor learning and where they need to be. On the second page there's a far-reaching illustration of this which clearly demonstrates it takes a whole school community to raise a child...!

It was not a lone job. Owing to the tight timescales, a team was put together to write different parts of the document. This is a chance for me to publicly thank everyone involved including:

• Daniel Raven-Ellison - one of the founder members of the Geography Collective and co-author of the Mission Explore series of books.
• Lynnette Borradaile - environmental education consultant 
• Jill O'Reilly - a part time primary school teacher and outdoor learning consultant
• Mark Baker - former Outdoor Learning Development Officer with Learning and Teaching Scotland. He's now in the middle of undertaking a PhD.
• Ollie Bray - who write a popular blog about digital learning and technologies. He's a secondary DHT on secondment to Education Scotland
• Sandra from Canada - a principal teacher of science, who I've known and kept in touch with since an exchange-visit to Canada many years ago
• Kirsty Robertson - the music teacher who runs Pandemic, the youth steel band at Bucksburn Academy in Aberdeen
• Margaret Hearne - a retired drama teacher who does all sorts of creative activities within North East Scotland
• Grounds for Learning - the Scottish schools grounds charity in particular Alastair Seaman and Caroline Standring

Many thanks are also extended to the many individuals who took the time to read parts of the draft, comment and give their feedback. The timescales were extremely tight. Finally thanks too, to the LTS and Education Scotland staff who did the editing, layout, photos etc. In particular the Outdoor Learning Development Officers who worked behind the scenes enabling these documents to be published.

Nature Kindergartens by Claire Warden

Ensuring that children have quality time in a natural space is being increasingly recognised, not just as a "jolly good thing" but as a right and necessity for their healthy growth and development.

In this busy world of structure and routine, even time spent in nature is an add-on to this compartmentalised lifestyle so many of us lead. The growth in movements and concepts such as Green Hour and Forest School are welcomed, yet it is possible they are simply another ball to juggle in our lives. In terms of fast food, it's the equivalent of asking if we want lettuce with our burger.

As the slow food movement is growing roots and shoots, ensuring that people think more holistically about their food, the educational equivalent, arguably, are nature kindergartens. The trouble is, most of these have developed in European countries where English is not the first language. Thus there has been limited information and knowledge about nature kindergartens and their pedagogical approach. This has led to misassumptions, as illustrated in this comment I received recently from a father, after blogging about his daughter climbing up a tree: 

As an Englishman living here in Sweden I had initial reservations about the what I considered "Hippy and Liberal" outdoor schools, how wrong I was! The fear of the unknown I think I can blame for this. I cannot praise the system and school enough, I'm sure you experienced the staff dedication during your visit. I am anxiously awaiting my second child attending the same school.

In 2010, Claire Warden wrote Nature Kindergartens, which for me is one of her most interesting books to-date. Since becoming a freelance education consultant I've been quite picky and critical of many books about outdoor learning and play because I feel the dots aren't being joined. The role of pre-school education within the context of wider societal issues is often omitted. In particular the need to consider the importance and impact of place.

I can remember opening her book for the first time and feeling a warm glow of satisfaction as I scanned the contents page and lost count of the number of times "place" was mentioned. Furthermore, the theme of the book is about the relationships between people and place and the activities that happen as a consequence of spending extended periods of time in a natural setting. It's about allowing children to make connections and learn through playing and being in nature, all year round and in all weathers. It's about the role of the practitioner to facilitate this through skilled observations of, and interactions with, children.

This diagram is now part of the definition of learning used in the Outdoor Learning:Practical guidance, ideas and support for teachers and practitioners in Scotland, published by Education Scotland, 2011 and ghost written by the Creative STAR team!!!

"So what?" you might be asking. Well, it came as no surprise when Mindstretchers Nature Kindergarten at Auchlone was inspected earlier this year and received "Excellent" ratings in all five areas. This is unprecedented. Gaining "Excellent" in one area alone is a huge and rare achievement within the Scottish inspection system. It was quite a visit, apparently, with a troop of HMIe inspectors staying significantly longer than usual and being particularly thorough. 

For me, it was visiting the I Ur och Skur pre-schools and primary schools that changed my way of thinking. At the first Rain or Shine pre-school, I dismissed my observations of children, excusing their superior physical skills, dexterity, social and communication skills, high levels of creativity and imagination down to their good parenting and nice middle-class backgrounds. After a further five visits, I had to admit that the commonality of the approach had to have some impact on this. 

Creating a firepit at the meadow

In Nature Kindergartens, Claire explains the rational and the approach succinctly. The book begins by looking at some of the research into the benefits of children spending time in nature. Next, the influence of Montessori, Froebel, Reggio Emilia and others is considered in relation to the work at the Mindstretchers' nature kindergartens. The importance of collegiality and the development of a warm, family community is highlighted. There are frequent, positive references to similar international examples.

The chapters move on to look at how children need to experience a variety of wild places and lead risk full lives as part of developing their sense of belonging. Playing in wild woods is often more transformational compared with a garden area. However, a sense of wildness can be gained even in a small patch of urban greenspace for young children. The concept of affordances is examined. The abundance of large and small open-ended materials for play makes natural areas a place that stimulates creativity, imagination and deep thinking about many issues, especially around sustainability and caring for the world in which we live. 

Finally Claire stresses the need to allow for time. This is where nature kindergartens add so much value that other nature-based approaches do not. Being outside, daily, all-year round in all weathers in natural settings allows children to make connections at their own pace, to take the time to absorb, process, reflect and re-visit ideas and concepts at a depth which simply isn't possible in a once-a-week visit to a nearby wood. 

Time to rethink pre-school provision here in the UK? Yes. And this book will help everyone do this.

Making Maths Sticks

Here in the UK we are leaving autumn and definitely heading into winter. Whilst many teacher believe that this means more time indoors, I tend to see the opportunities to do activities which can't be done at other times of the year.

One example is aspects of tree work. Winter is the season for planting trees, establishing willow structures and general pruning. At the weekend I was visiting relatives, who happened to mention that they had coppiced some hazel (see the above photo) and just left the long shoots to be burnt on the bonfire.

I couldn't help, but take a look. To my delight I found lots of material just ready to be cut into measuring sticks of different lengths.

This is a practical maths activity in its own right. There's a lot of measuring required and careful attention is needed in order to choose the straightest parts of the hazel shoots.

I tried to use as much of the shoots as possible. Hazel is a beautiful wood and the poles it makes, amongst other things, are ideal for stick work. In the photo below is the material gathered from about 4 poles: long and short sticks, twigs and noggins.

As a rule of thumb, I'm finding that a class pack of sticks tends to involve 72 x 30cm sticks, 72 x 60cm sticks, 36 x 1m sticks and now I'm beginning to build up a collection of 120cm sticks. That's exciting and makes for a good winter challenge. If you don't have the good fortune to have access to land with ready-to-coppice trees, then order sticks from Muddy Faces.

The Comedy Carpet - Outdoor Literacy at its Best!

Doing literacy activities outside is no joke... or may be it should be! This weekend I was able to visit the recently-opened Comedy Carpet in Blackpool.

It's a tribute to British comedians who have performed in Blackpool, the traditional entertainment capital of Britain. Set in a specially made bright white concrete are approximately 180 000 letters that spell out their known catchphrases, gags, punchlines and jokes. The black and red letters are granite stone. The blue ones are made from cobalt-coloured concrete.

Above the title is perhaps the most famous catch phrase of all...

It has to be one of the most absorbing public works of art I have ever seen. There is so much to read... and laugh about! It can be a challenge to work out who said what, for someone like me who doesn't always keep up with the entertainment world.

Whilst children and visitors from abroad may not understand nor recognise every clip, the sheer size of the work is enticing... the text, font, colours and layout all celebrate what is best about British entertainment. Blackpool is all about how we play in Britain... and this artwork definitely turns words into play...

The Comedy Carpet is easily accessible by everyone and anyone. At any one time, it was possible to see people of all ages wandering about....

It is smooth enough to dance on, or wheel a buggy about. This is quite an important feature as the Carpet is sited on the headland which will regularly host live events for 20 000 people. 

The design construction  involved making sections, most of which are 2x4m in size. The design for each section was printed out backwards and the letters and typographic decoration laid out on top. The concrete was poured over and left to set in the mould. After that, steel supports were put in using more concrete. When the section was eventually removed from the mould, the surface was ground to create a uniform finish... just perfect for a group of children scooting around...

... whilst ignoring some of the cheekier comments...!

Whilst some of the language is definitely on the uncouth and un-pc side, I think it's part of the appeal. Many children rather like looking for lots of swear words which have little asterisks to make them permissible... there were quite a few in Billy Connolly's section! For pre-readers, there's a lot of fun exploration too, such as simple designs...

And lots of alliteration and rhyme....

Cyclists even stopped for a look...

And most people were completely absorbed by the work or enjoyed just passing some time of day there...

The Blackpool Tower is at the foot of the Comedy Carpet. You can climb up the first couple of levels for free to get a bird's eye view. Sadly the Council did not allow the work to be completed. It was meant to extend across the tramway. However, I think there was concerns about this causing accidents. 

The artists and construction workers and everyone else who was involved all have their names written in stars around the title too...

The Comedy Carpet was created by Gordon Young in partnership with Why Not Associates - a British graphic design company. He's done many interesting public artworks and it's worth looking at his website for visual art and literacy inspiration. For more information about Comedy Carpet, then the actual website tells you much more about the artist, the designer and the carpet of concrete.