ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the potential of the outdoor environment to encourage and enable children’s communication. It provides outdoor learning and development shared by an increasing number of early years settings. The chapter examines the special potential of the outdoor environment, different from that of the indoor, to contribute to children’s development. It discusses the many vignettes from practice which vividly exemplify the impact of sensitive, empathetic practitioner actions in response to the perspective of the child and which offer the reader opportunities to reflect on their own practice and provision. The chapter explains the different possibilities of an outdoor environment to support children’s communication development. It also examines some of the challenges facing practitioners who want to take their teaching and children’s learning outdoors. There are many international models to support a pedagogic approach to outdoor learning, particularly in Scandinavian countries.
