Thank you to Learning by Nature for providing this guest post. Learning by Nature is a national movement of students, teachers, and school communities enhancing and stewarding nature on their school grounds. They support tracking biodiversity on school grounds and making small enhancements at a large scale. Last year, they funded 104 Student Climate and Biodiversity...
Thank you to Rune Storli (rus@dmmh.no), Professor in Physical Education and Health at Queen Maud University College of Early Childhood Education, Norway, for providing this post. This article explores the Granåsen Nature Playground, built in Trondheim, Norway, in the autumn of 2024. The playground was designed using research-based principles and evidence about children’s play, learning and...
This article written by Josh Fullan was originally published in Spacing After years of relatively mild winters, the darkest season is once again bringing sustained cold and abundant snow to Canadian cities. And if spring excites thoughts of romance in some of us, then winter is for generalized complaining. Toronto sank into a polar freeze sometime around...
Advancing Outdoor and Land-based Outdoor Early Childhood Education in Canada - Come Join Us! February 19, 2026 Thank you to the CCOP’s Sub-committee on regulating outdoor and land-based programs for writing this post. Going outdoors with young children is beneficial. Indigenous people have learned on the land for many generations. Many outdoor early childhood programs have been...
In support of the Lawson Foundation's Policy Brief: Regulating Outdoor and Land-Based Learning as Early Learning and Child Care The Canadian Centre for Outdoor Play (CCOP) and the National Panel on Regulating Outdoor and Land-Based Early Childhood Education (‘the National Panel’), a collective within the CCOP, are pleased to endorse the Lawson Foundation’s October 2025 Policy Brief,...
This article written by Marnie Power and Linsey Sherman-Zekulin was originally published in The Philanthropist A partnership between a family foundation and a grassroots charity demonstrates what happens when two organizations trust each other enough to shift power, follow community wisdom, and explore an idea without prescribing what it must become. Three years ago, Playful Mindset and...
Thank you to Dr. Richard Larouche, Associate Professor of Public Health at the University of Lethbridge, for providing this post. Which factors predict outdoor play in Canadian 7- to 12-year-olds? Previous studies and literature reviews have consistently found that children who spend more time outdoors are more physically active and generally have better physical, social, mental, and...
Outdoor Play Canada is looking to hire a full-time Canadian Centre for Outdoor Play (CCOP) Fellow for one year to build capacity and thought-leadership for outdoor play stakeholders. As the CCOP Fellow, your role will be to lead advocacy and thought-leadership initiatives for the promotion of outdoor play in the early years, in collaboration with...
Thank you to Marnie Power for providing this post. This article was originally published in Playful Mindset. If you read early learning curriculum documents across Canada today, you might assume that play has always been central to how we understand children's learning. Many educators certainly knew this long before curriculum frameworks formally acknowledged it. But the policy...
This year, Alessia Capone, PhD candidate at the University of Toronto in collaboration with the Canadian Centre for Outdoor Play, had the opportunity to share research at two exciting events: the International Symposium of Adapted Physical Activity (ISAPA) in Kerry, Ireland, and the Eastern Canada Sport and Exercise Psychology Symposium (ECSEPS) in London, Ontario. At ISAPA,...
