Blogs I follow

Let The Children Play – progressive preschool near Sydney, Australia with an emphasis on play outdoors – wonderful, lively and image-led, Jenny Kable also likes to find other good sites and shares lots of practice.

Teacher Tom – progressive preschool in Seattle, Washington, USA – fantastic for provoking and deepening thinking and always worth reading.

Images of Learning Project – beautiful blog from Victoria, Canada, always thought provoking and deep.

Little Eyes on Nature – a group of preschools in New Zealand with a strong philosophy and practice around educating for sustainable living (they describe themselves as enviro Montessori) with a clear Maori influence - again, deep and thoughtful.

I’m a Teacher, Get Me OUTSIDE Here! – Juliet Robertson in Aberdeenshire, Scotland is fantastic at finding and sharing information – a really useful and energising blog.

The Grass Stain Guru  - this blog’s strapline is ‘Childhood was meant to be messy’.  Outdoors and nature are the main themes.

Playscapes – superb playground design blog from Paige Johnson in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA that has become a hub for sharing innovative practice and thinking  from all over the world- lots for thinking about outdoor play environments and thinking outside the box.

The Learning Landscape – from Michelle Mathis, a practicing landscape architect in Portland, Oregon, USA with an interest in nature, education and design – intersecting in educational outdoor environments.

Rethinking Childhood – from Tim Gill is a great source of provocation, thinking and information/links about play, especially in unstructured natural environments.

Tinkering School – truely wonderful and deeply important initiative in the US by Gever Tully.  Watch his TED talks to get into the idea and then see Teacher Tom and Let the Children Play blogs for doing it in the early years.

Moving Smart - the strapline is “A moving child is a learning child” – what else do I need to say? Lots of very good stuff here, especially on birth to three.

Exuberant Animal - Frank Forencich (from Seattle) writes superb articles in his newsletter, coming from a wonderfully holistic approach to ‘the power of health, play and joyfull movement’.  I really like his work.

Suzanne Zeedyk - ‘The Science of Human Connection’ – flows from Suzanne’s work on ‘The Connected Baby’, a recently released DVD showing the minute detail of how very young babies are highly tuned to interaction and communication.  The film is available from her website  at £13.50 – showing several ‘dances’ – very sophisticated and important stuff.