Sep 1, 2020 | Early Years Outdoors, Personal & Holidays
Guest blog by Lesley McLaren, Creative STAR Admin Assistant. I’ve worked for Creative STAR for a good few years now (behind the scenes) and although I occasionally tag along with Juliet to her courses, I haven’t experienced learning first hand with...
Jun 17, 2020 | Early Years Outdoors, Literacy Outdoors, Nature Play & Learning
On many of my courses, I offer a booklet of nature play ideas on different outdoor themes. These are adaptations of many of the blog posts, so click on the links below to find out more. Linking books to nature has several aims when it comes to supporting...
Apr 21, 2020 | Art & Music Outdoors, Early Years Outdoors, Nature Play & Learning
I’m fortunate enough to live in a wee town where there are a number of different walks I can do from my house. Most of the time, I’ll confess, I’m busy playing Wizards Unite. Today, being bored of this game, I thought I’d go in search of gold....
Feb 19, 2020 | Art & Music Outdoors, Early Years Outdoors, Literacy Outdoors, Maths Outdoors
This week I’ve been presenting at the Aberdeenshire Council’s Early Years Conference. The theme has been Outdoor Literacy and my workshop focused on the natural art of mark making outside. However the process is easy enough for older primary children to...
Jan 7, 2020 | Early Years Outdoors, Whole School
How do you demonstrate that your setting truly values the outdoors? This is a crux question that can be surprisingly difficult to exemplify. In my work, I visit a lot of early years settings. I am often told of the importance of outdoor experiences. However the...
Dec 21, 2019 | Art & Music Outdoors, Early Years Outdoors, Science Outdoors
At this time of year, chocolates are bought and the amount of wrappers thrown in the bin can mount up. At a recent training event I asked the participants to save their sweetie wrappers and we added them to a transparent tarp. It was a random choice of designs. I...
Oct 26, 2019 | Community Involvement, Early Years Outdoors, Whole School
Since 2015, Fort William Stramash Outdoor Nursery has celebrated bonfire night in style. It is one of the most popular events in the Stramash calendar with hundreds of tickets reserved and crowds of present and past children and their families coming along to...
Jan 20, 2019 | Early Years Outdoors, Nature Play & Learning
This is a guest post by Lesley McLaren, Admin Assistant at Creative STAR. She wrote during a very snowy winter. We are waiting for another decent fall of snow and hope this blog post will inspire you to get out and play when it happens. We had a huge amount of snow...
Dec 2, 2018 | Early Years Outdoors, Play Resources, Technologies
Several years ago I bought a set of bamboo guttering comprising of 6 short and 6 long lengths. I’ve used it so many times, with so many classes and groups and in so many ways. Here’s some of the reasons why it is such a useful resource… 1. It is light and...
Jun 24, 2018 | Early Years Outdoors, Literacy Outdoors, Maths Outdoors
It is very easy when considering how to embed literacy and maths into an outdoor space to plump for sticking up an alphabet, words and numbers outside in various forms from bunting to letters to expensive signage. However this approach is rarely effective at engaging...
Jun 8, 2018 | Developing School Grounds & Outdoor Spaces, Early Years Outdoors
When in Adelaide, I was fortunate enough to be able to visit the World Environment Fair. It’s an indoor event with lots of stalls and information about all things environmental. As soon as you enter, the first thing that was to be seen was a huge – and I...
Apr 1, 2018 | Early Years Outdoors, Health & Wellbeing, Whole School
In 2015, early years outdoor education consultant, Jan White wrote a book Every Child a Mover published by Early Education. It is a fabulous read that puts physical development firmly at the heart of good early years provision. There is lots of sensible practical...
Jan 10, 2018 | Early Years Outdoors, Maths Outdoors
For many years I’ve been experimenting with useful pocket-sized maths resources. Things have come in and gone out again, as I’ve refined, tested and adapted what works. What I’ve been aiming for is a small set of resources which enable me to support...
Dec 8, 2017 | Early Years Outdoors, Whole School
‘In any environment, both the degree of inventiveness and creativity, and the possibility of discovery, are directly proportional to the number and kind of variables in it.” Simon Nicholson In 1971, Simon Nicholson wrote an article in a Landscape Architecture journal...
Oct 11, 2017 | Developing School Grounds & Outdoor Spaces, Early Years Outdoors, Gardening
Back in 2011 a couple of my blog posts featured Westpark School Nursery in Aberdeen – the ones about masking tape and blue tarp on a windy day. At that time, the outdoor space was sparse – an expanse of asphalt, a patch of blue wet pour surfacing in one...
Sep 2, 2017 | Early Years Outdoors, Nature Play & Learning
In this blog post, I had the opportunity to interview Zilvinas Karpis, who founded the first outdoor nursery in Lithuania. As with other European countries, there is increased focus and interest in such approaches. There is lots of evidence that points to the...
Aug 3, 2017 | Art & Music Outdoors, Early Years Outdoors, Science Outdoors
For one of my birthdays, I received a set of magnetic googly eyes. The idea is that you use them to attach photos to your fridge and that you can put the googly eyes over people or animal eyes for a comic effect. Naturally I saw their potential for helping children to...
Jul 28, 2017 | Developing School Grounds & Outdoor Spaces, Early Years Outdoors
Highway Farm has many pockets of inspiration for the outdoor early years enthusiast. I always liked their original sandpit pictured above and below. It’s got many attributes that I find appealing and add value to the children’s play including a couple of...
Jun 20, 2017 | Early Years Outdoors, Gardening, Literacy Outdoors
Many years ago, I had a quick stop-over in Penrith en route south. It’s always a bit of a mad dash but I needed a leg stretch and to catch a few Pokemon, so I toddled off around the town centre. Whilst going down a side street, I stumbled across a community...
May 5, 2017 | Early Years Outdoors, Maths Outdoors
One of the most memorable outdoor learning in-set training sessions I undertook was at Tyntesfield Primary. It was a lovely day and I was made to feel very welcome. They came up with the following very simple maths investigations which demonstrate nicely how teachers...
