Childcare Mentorship Program

Full day nature play workshop

‍We spend a full day at your centre to provide mentorship training for your staff and children that focuses on outdoor unstructured free play in your playground.Educators witness how children focus, connect, and problem-solve by simply adding a few provocations, loose parts and tools to take advantage of what their playground already offers as well as seizing the many sensory rich opportunities resulting from the weather.

We set up activities that promote big body play, sensory rich activities and chances for children to connect, problem-solve and challenge.  Supporting language and self-regulation opportunities weave throughout activities provided. Graduated challenges are readily available for all age groups, infants, toddlers, preschoolers and school age, to support success, independence and self-confidence.

Four Season of Programming

The weather is often the muse for outdoor curriculum delivery and provocations. We simplify what you have, reuse loose parts and change or add tools used.

Fall

We use appropriately sized rakes to gather the leaves. We focus on the process of raking but not bagging. Leaves are great loose part used for art and can be reused for jumping or sliding into. Gathering fallen tree seeds such as pinecones, acorns, walnuts, chestnuts and seed pods allows for transient art projects as well as many collections to be created and sorted.

Winter

We bring extra mittens and a special way to keep mittens on by improving their grasp. All tools provided need children to maintain good grasp while wearing their mittens. Rubber mallets are used to break up the ice and winter shovels for clearing the snow. Discarded Christmas trees are a good winter staple.  These trees remain green all winter long and offer so many great sensory rich and big body play opportunities.

Creating simple shelters to provide an area out of the winter elements is key to supporting sustained winter play especially for the infants and toddlers. Extra materials including burlap, straw and discarded Christmas trees are used to create this on site with the children.

Spring

We provide muddy buddies, one-piece rain suits, to take advantage of the rain and mud found everywhere in the spring! Puddles are used as nature’s water table with scoops, bowls, basters, strainers, troughs, and squeeze bottles.

Summer

Cooling off in the heat is a necessity and water play is used throughout many activities including; sand play, sensory tables, water walls, and mud kitchens. Loads of buckets, spades and trowels are used for digging and transporting these items providing heavy work opportunities to support body awareness and self-regulation.