But unexpected connections are all part of outdoor learning, as early-years officer Amanda Patrick explained. Then they make owls with the cones, so we read a story about owls and then learn a big word, ‘nocturnal’. There is particular focus on outdoor, play-based learning for early years, with the entire shortlist for the UK’s best nursery at last years’ Nursery World Awards made up of outdoor operations. This February, the children’s minister, Maree Todd, announced funding of more than £850,000 to explore how to embed outdoor learning in this expansion, pledging to make it “a defining feature of childhood in Scotland”. So the city council is also considering how to use Glasgow’s many magnificent public parks as a base for outdoor nursery shifts, alongside the possibility of registering unused outdoor space close to existing nurseries, and rewilding them on a small scale.

Source: The Guardian April 02, 2018 14:10 UTC