Do you want to create exciting outdoor experiences for children? Are you looking for guidance on how to incorporate the wilder and riskier elements of outdoor play into your planning? This book will give you the confidence to offer the children in your setting adventurous and challenging outdoor activities, as well as ways to utilise natural resources to their best advantage. There is clear, practical advice on what you need to do, which is underpinned by the theory that supports the benefits of this approach. Examples from settings are included, to illustrate best practice and to show how things can be achieved. Issues considered include: - being outside in 'bad' weather - the importance of risk-taking - the benefits of rough and tumble play - observing and assessing children in this mode - how these experiences improve children's learning - explaining activities to parents, colleagues and managers - ensuring health and safety requirements are met - the role of the adult in facilitating these experiences. Suitable for all students and practitioners working with young children from Birth to 8 , this book will not only give you ideas for outdoor play but also help you understand exactly what you are doing, why it is educationally sound and developmentally important for children, and where it connects with the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) in England, the Foundation Phase (FP) in Wales and the Curriculum for Excellence in Scotland. Sara Knight is an experienced early years educator and Senior Lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University. She is a trained Forest School practitioner and author of Forest Schools and Outdoor Learning in the Early Years.

A beautiful full-colour book by Forest School expert and teacher Sara Knight that inspires and encourages individuals of all ages to take an innovative approach to outdoor play and learning. The images throughout the book bring alive Forest School activities and each chapter is accompanied by creative ideas for practice and in depth case studies from across the United Kingdom and Ireland exploring the amazing variety of nature provision. Coverage includes: Rural and urban day nurseries for very young children State and independent provision for Early Years and Primary Schools Secondary School intervention strategies for students with special education needs and disabilities How to support parents and families with Forest School Supporting people with mental health issues. Suggestions for further reading at the end of chapters will be a helpful guide for students to read around the topic. Whether you're training to become a teacher, or already working in the outdoor classroom, this book demonstrates how Forest School approaches are enriching learning opportunities for children, young people and adults, and deepening their connections with the natural world, with spectacular results. Sara Knight will be discussing key ideas from Forest School in Practice in the SAGE Early Years Masterclass, a free professional development experience hosted by Kathy Brodie.

How can you use the Forest School ethos for the benefit of all your students?

Forest School is now being used with a wide range of different age groups and in many different settings, and it can address issues such as obesity, public health and social wellbeing. This book includes case studies that will help to demonstrate how to run Forest School sessions with:

-children in older primary classes

-secondary schools

-children in urban environments

-special schools

-young people in residential homes

-school refusers

-young people who have been excluded

-adults with autistic-spectrum disorders

-family centres.

Anyone interested in how to implement the Forest School ethos in their learning environment will be enthused and inspired by this book.

Sara Knight is an experienced early years educator and Senior Lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University. She is a trained Forest School practitioner and author of Forest Schools and Outdoor Learning in the Early Years and Risk and Adventure in Early Years Outdoor Play (both published by SAGE).

Outdoor learning continues to play an essential role in early years education, and this new edition of a bestselling book explores how the Forest School approach can be easily and effectively incorporated into early years practice.

Expanding on aspects of Forest School teaching, and drawing on new developments and policy changes within the field, this new edition also includes:

-a new chapter on working with parents

-greater coverage of the 0-2 age range

-new case studies to aid learning

-coverage of international approaches to Forest School

Yet again Sara Knight delivers an inspirational text for all those working in or studying early years education and care.

Sara Knight is an experienced early years educator and Senior Lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University. She is a trained Forest School practitioner and author of Forest Schools For All and Risk and Adventure in Early Years Outdoor Play (both published by SAGE).

Championing the therapeutic power of nature, this book explores why outdoor play therapy offers children more than being confined to a playroom and how practice can be moved into the natural environment in a safe and ethical way. By using outdoor environments, the traditional dyadic relationship between the therapist and the child becomes a triadic one in which the therapeutic process is enhanced and the environment for the play therapy is shared and therefore more 'democratic'. The child can develop a lifelong therapeutic attachment to the 'nature mother' which supports the development of the body self and a growing recognition of our interdependence with nature. The author explores how this is achievable in practice and the benefits to children with a wide range of needs including profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD), complex social, emotional and behavioural problems (SEBD) and attachment issues. Synthesising traditions of using outdoor spaces in a therapeutic context with approaches from educational perspectives, this book offers a theoretically-sound and practical framework for taking play therapy into natural environments.

Do you want to create exciting outdoor experiences for children? Are you looking for guidance on how to incorporate the wilder and riskier elements of outdoor play into your planning? This book will give you the confidence to offer the children in your setting adventurous and challenging outdoor activities, as well as ways to utilise natural resources to their best advantage. There is clear, practical advice on what you need to do, which is underpinned by the theory that supports the benefits of this approach. Examples from settings are included, to illustrate best practice and to show how things can be achieved. Issues considered include: - being outside in 'bad' weather - the importance of risk-taking - the benefits of rough and tumble play - observing and assessing children in this mode - how these experiences improve children's learning - explaining activities to parents, colleagues and managers - ensuring health and safety requirements are met - the role of the adult in facilitating these experiences. Suitable for all students and practitioners working with young children from Birth to 8 , this book will not only give you ideas for outdoor play but also help you understand exactly what you are doing, why it is educationally sound and developmentally important for children, and where it connects with the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) in England, the Foundation Phase (FP) in Wales and the Curriculum for Excellence in Scotland. Sara Knight is an experienced early years educator and Senior Lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University. She is a trained Forest School practitioner and author of Forest Schools and Outdoor Learning in the Early Years.