Schools often want to start a school garden, but how to get started?  What do we do when something doesn't grow?  Sun?  Water?  What can we do if we are only a 9 month school?  Learning and Development standards aligned lessons will be shared including planting activities, planting schedules, and activities throughout 10 months out of the year.  In this training we will assist staff with building a raised garden box for your school.  Two options:

• Bring and install all components of a raised bed including equipment, soil, seeds, and plans.  2 hours of Ohio Approved training hours for members of your staff.

• Revitalize an existing bed at the center with 2 hours of Ohio Approved training hours for members of your staff. 

Seeds are all around us.  In this workshop we will examine not only the science of seeds, but also the cultural, metaphorical, and practical applications of seeds in the early childhood classroom.  Together we will examine free to low cost ways of looking at our world through a lens of seeds and growing things.  This workshop is ideal for child-led, discovery-led or project based learning.  Using hands-on exploration participants will help co-create ways to incorporate the natural world's seeds throughout the entire year and will walk away with a sample yearly outline as well as literature recommendations.  This workshop will be held both inside and will spend some time outside.  Please dress accordingly.

This FUN training will engage participants in discovering the developmental nature and value of playing with sticks and rocks as well as the ever present weapon and big body play that children engage in.  We'll review NAEYC recommendations about active outdoor play and ways to say yes to these behaviors and items in a classroom setting.  Teacher perspectives will be examined and we'll discuss how working outdoors with children and finding ways to be responsive to the natural behavior and pivot those to enhance learning.  We will also equip participants with 'teacher tools,' prepare teachers to empower children with 'children's tools' and ways to pivot big interests in these areas.  We'll brainstorm ways to use sticks and rocks for academic and cognitive purposes-as well as play!

Participants will join in a playful and high energy workshop will examine building executive function skills in the outdoors.  We will explore the importance of these skills, the connection to our senses, and key questions and tools for teachers to use to scaffold children to building these skills.  Participants will learn about both broad practices in nature-based education as well as practical activities to bring to the classroom right away.    

By exploring the power in learning outdoors, we will discover the rationale and research supporting creating nature connections and enhancing child development by moving outdoors as much as possible. Participants will establish their own connections and identify roadblocks with working with children outdoors. 

The realities of COVID-19 in schools have shifted thinking to what is possible when working outdoors with children.  However, many teachers struggle with how to feel like they are accomplishing their developmental and learning goals when outdoors.  This training will introduce 3  core routines that you can use in your classroom right away as containers to hold other activities and lessons.  An experienced Nature-Based Educator who has working in ODJFS and SUTQ programs utilizing these methods will help you embrace the outdoors-no need for a fancy nature playground or forest!

Beyond just the usual five senses, we'll explore how our body, emotions, and brain are all activated when we spend time learning outdoors. This fun and invigorating session full of play and discovery will walk participants through these benefits as well!    

When we work outdoors with natural materials either in the outdoor classroom or in natural areas, there will be opportunity for developmentally appropriate risks.  This training will help participants see the link between both social emotional skills and executive function in these natural environments.  We will learn how to anticipate and plan for engaging with natural materials and phenomenon.

Building on the 'Risks vs Hazards in the Outdoors' workshop, this course will examine how our own backgrounds and fears impact our instruction and guidance of children.  We will learn tools, tips and skills for both the educator and the child to help establish and maintain trust when exploring the outdoors together.

Teachers, Family Providers, and Administrators will examine the current outdoor spaces at their center or home, analyze the positives for nature play, troubleshoot negative aspects to the current set up, and think creatively about additions.  Practical and low cost solutions will be suggested and resources shared.

Discover amazing ways to take learning outside and to begin thinking of your playground as an Outdoor Classroom!  An emphasis on play and loose parts will be enjoyed by participants while we discuss how working outdoors offers creative and beneficial ways to access mental health, cognitive, and social-emotional support.  Practical ideas are shared in order to take action right away, while also planning long term on how to utilize the outdoor spaces more.

Getting beyond the theory and need for children to play learn outdoors, this workshop offers preschool teachers practical and emergent activities, lessons, and teaching practices that create connections to nature in the autumn and early winter.  Whether you are in a park, your playground, or the hedgerow by the parking lot-nature and the cycles of the seasons are all around us waiting to be discovered.  Prepare to be actively discovering the wonder and joy of the plants, animals and climate yourself in this hands-on time in nature.  Participants are invited to bring a book they might use in their classroom in autumn to co-create a searchable library.  We will be outside for a portion of this workshop.

When working towards increasing nature connection in your program, you may have experienced a lack of support or things that seem insurmountable. We'll co-create lists of resources (time, treasure, and talent) to help support your next step.   Discussing how to encourage administration, co-teachers, and grant writing are included.  Participants will also be invited to join the nature-based community to help you and/or your center moving forward.

In this workshop, participants will look at their childhood to identify meaningful nature stories, then craft (either as a center, team or individually) the arc of a nature story for their class to discover.  This could be a natural phenomenon they have been wanting to explore in their space, a routine field trip they could design, or more fully develop a lesson they have already used using tools and different types of storytelling.  Documentation and family connections will also be discussed.

Get ready to greet the sun and co-create summer emergent curriculum.  This is a high energy time in nature and participants will combine their prior knowledge, a nature walk and new learning about Ohio summer phenology (cycles of plants and animals) to create nature-based experiences for their students.  We'll sing, dance, yoga, and plan together while participating in nature activities that you can use tomorrow.  Participants are asked to bring their favorite summer book about nature.  

In 2024 we are working to create more seasonal naturalist trainings that will help teachers feel more confident about what is happening to the earth, animals and plants around them.  The two biggest concerns we hear from educators is "not feeling like they know enough" and how to manage children outdoors away from the four walls of the classroom.  Let's do this!