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Reflections on First Mud Day Moments

two children smiling while playing in mud

Know anyone who’s squeamish about mud, but still intrigued? Cori Berg, Director of Hope Day School in Dallas, Texas, shares their program’s first ever International Mud Day experience. Along the way, Cori shows how honest reflection, a tangled mix of excitement and trepidation and her deep respect for each child’s experience mix together just like…
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Visual Spatial Learning in Outdoor Classrooms

This is the final in a series of blogs highlighting “Growing with Nature: Supporting Whole-Child Learning in Outdoor Classrooms.” Contributors include Dimensions Educational Research Foundation executive director Nancy Rosenow and members of the Nature Explore education team.   Visual/Spatial Learning: The ability to perceive the visual information in the environment, to represent it internally, to…
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Finding our Place Through Creativity

This is the seventh in a series of blogs highlighting “Growing with Nature: Supporting Whole-Child Learning in Outdoor Classrooms.” Contributors include Dimensions Educational Research Foundation executive director Nancy Rosenow and members of the Nature Explore education team.   Perhaps one of the first—and most enduring—lessons an educator learns is that creativity is the way children…
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Get Those Children Moving!

This is the sixth in a series of blogs highlighting “Growing with Nature: Supporting Whole-Child Learning in Outdoor Classrooms.” Contributors include Dimensions Educational Research Foundation executive director Nancy Rosenow and members of the Nature Explore education team.   “The importance of movement thinking should not be underestimated. If the six-year-old child does not have fundamental…
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Nature + Exploration = Boundless Mathematics Learning

This is the fifth in a series of blogs highlighting “Growing with Nature: Supporting Whole-Child Learning in Outdoor Classrooms.” Contributors include Dimensions Educational Research Foundation executive director Nancy Rosenow and members of the Nature Explore education team.   Natural outdoor classrooms provide engaging opportunities for children to develop mathematical ideas through frequent hands-on investigations. The…
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Raising a Generation of Nurturers: Social/Emotional Development in Outdoor Classrooms

This is the fourth in a series of blogs highlighting “Growing with Nature: Supporting Whole-Child Learning in Outdoor Classrooms.” Contributors include Dimensions Educational Research Foundation executive director Nancy Rosenow and members of the Nature Explore education team.   Our fast-paced, technology-laden society limits children’s opportunities to engage in the kinds of unstructured interactive play that…
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All Children are Scientists; The World is their Laboratory

This is the third in a series of blogs highlighting “Growing with Nature: Supporting Whole-Child Learning in Outdoor Classrooms.” Contributors include Dimensions Educational Research Foundation executive director Nancy Rosenow and members of the Nature Explore education team.   Over the past few decades, outdoor settings for children have become increasingly sanitized spaces devoid of nature’s…
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Helping Language and Literacy Flourish in Outdoor Classrooms

This is the second in a series of blogs highlighting “Growing with Nature: Supporting Whole-Child Learning in Outdoor Classrooms.” Contributors include Dimensions Educational Research Foundation executive director Nancy Rosenow and members of the Nature Explore education team.   “A child’s quest for knowledge about his world, which is energized by experiences in the outdoors, leads…
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A Whole-Child Approach to Learning in Nature

This is the first in a series of blogs highlighting “Growing with Nature: Supporting Whole-Child Learning in Outdoor Classrooms.” Contributors include Dimensions Educational Research Foundation executive director Nancy Rosenow and members of the Nature Explore education team.   “When children were engaged in authentic play in the Nature Explore Classroom they were developing important skills—skills…
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From Pigs to People: Socialization Skills Developed Naturally

New Zealand is where I finally caught up with Karen Lucy, Director of Early Childhood Education in the Shirlee Green preschool at the Jewish Congregation Shaare Emeth in St. Louis, Missouri. We were both there for the 2017 World Forum on Early Care and Education. Karen’s presentation on children and nature was low-tech, heartfelt, and…
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