2017 Spring Conference
“ECOLOGIES OF CHILDHOOD: LINKING
PLACE, PLAY, and PEDAGOGY”
Facilitated by: Sinéad Rafferty, RECE, MES
This interactive workshop explores modern trends in thinking about nature
and how this influences practice in early childhood education.
Saturday May 13, 2017
8:30 registration and light breakfast
9:00—3:00
Ignatius Jesuit Centre
5420 Highway 6 North, Guelph
Light Breakfast, lunch and workshop materials included
Cost: $45.00 per participant working in child care in Guelph or Wellington County
Maximum of 100 participants so please register early!
Register before May 1st online at
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/14th-annual-spring-conference-tickets-33492806887
To allow as many programs as possible to attend,
there will be a limit of 4 participants per program.
If space is available after May 5, registration will be open to those on the wait list.
To be placed on the wait list, please email name and centre to
Heather at [email protected]
14th Annual Spring Conference Workshop Description
The tides are shifting in early childhood education towards recognizing the value of
outdoor play-based experiences and supporting children’s relationship with “nature”.
Outdoor and nature-based early childhood programs are repositioning how childhood
happens towards more meaningful and inclusive interactions and with the “more-than
-human” world. This interactive workshop explores modern trends in thinking about
nature and how this influences practice in early childhood education. Drawing from
place-based learning; early childhood environmental education, and a Forest School
ethos, together we will weave new pedagogical approaches with early learning frameworks, such as How Does learning Happen? Further, through hands-on, collaborative,
and reflective experiences, we will explore meanings of nature and ecological
literacy as it relates to our life and early childhood practice. This workshop aims to
help deepen our understanding and perception of nature, so educators may more
genuinely tune into children’s emerging relations with the world.
Presenters Bio:
Sinéad Rafferty is a Registered Early Childhood Educator, with a Masters of
Environmental Studies (MES), and a Graduate Diploma in Environmental and
Sustainability Education. Her graduate research focused on pedagogies for
childhood, nature and place in early childhood education, and was deeply
inspired by models of Forest Schools and emergent curriculum as a form of
transformative education. Sinéad currently works in the preschool program at
the University of Toronto Early Learning Centre and as a Forest School
Practitioner with the Kortright Centre for Conservation. In both settings,
spending time in the outdoors is an integral part of the play-based, emergent
curriculum that she facilitates everyday. She is passionate about creating
places and nature cultures of play and learning, which nurture young children’s
active participation in the world and relations with ecological life.