Outdoor and Nature Play and Physical Development

In order to facilitate healthy social emotional development among young children, early childhood professionals first need to have the tools to regulate their own emotions and manage their own stress.

The purpose of this 2-hour course is to provide early childhood educators with information and resources to recognize stressors and signs of stress and empower them to adopt healthy approaches to stress management.

To facilitate positive social and emotional outcomes for children, early childhood educators need to understand and recognize the role of stress and trauma on early brain development and implement proactive and responsive measures to build children’s resilience.

This 2-hour course aims to help early childhood professionals understand how they can play a part in cultivating positive social emotional outcomes for each child by applying trauma-informed and resiliency-supporting practices in early learning settings.

Being an early childhood advocate extends beyond the classroom and includes collaborating with colleagues to work to create positive improvements in our field. Advocacy in the early childhood field is how we make substantial changes in regulations that support funding, research, improve systems, and further the development of our field to make a lifelong impact on children and families. 

After completing this 2-hour course, the learner will be able to describe what being an advocate entails, explain how why advocacy is important, and identify various advocacy organizations.

Despite the known benefits of outdoor and nature play for young children, early childhood educators and administrators may worry about issues of safety and liability.

The purpose of this 2-hour course is to equip early childhood professionals to view risk in outdoor and nature play as a process of balancing risks and benefits, rather than a barrier to including outdoor and nature play in your program.