Family Nature Guides Training - Starting Out Wild/Family Nature Guides

Sep 22, 2026

Upload by Riley

Training and learning materials explain how to use Starting Out Wild/Family Nature Guides to engage very young children in outdoor nature learning. It addresses the nature deficit problem created by early screen exposure and presents the program’s evolution from Growing Up WILD, including adaptations, pilot teaching, revisions, and the transition to Family Nature Guides. Core values emphasize playful, process-oriented activities, real science, and parent involvement. Guidance covers engaging ages 1–3 through movement, touch, gradual exposure, and language that makes vocabulary meaningful through rich sensory experiences.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryPresentations

FormatPDF

Pages76

Reading Time27 min

AccessFree to download

Training and Learning Materials

How to Use Starting Out/Family Nature Guides

The Problem - Nature Deficit Disorder

Core Values

First Things First: Engaging Very Young Children

Understanding Language and Thinking

Training and Learning Materials How to use Starting Out/Family Nature Guides! Ready, Set, Start Out Naturalist! Using Starting Out Wild/Family Nature Guides to get young children engaged in nature The Problem-– Nature Deficit Disorder Children today are on screens and experiencing life virtually from the earliest months. Yes, young children can enjoy nature! Starting Out Wild was developed to extend Growing Up WILD to our youngest naturalists. • Adapting GUW • Trying it out with one team of teachers in one location • Developing a framework • Writing original materials • Multiple teams teaching multiple populations • Incorporating materials from many sources • Multiple revisions • A work in progress • The original materials • Transition to Family Nature Guides Core values •The love of nature needs to accompany growing up from the beginning . •Teaching must engage both children and parents. •Learning will spiral, moving from tolerating and participating, to acquiring increasingly more complex concepts and vocabulary. •We will learn with play and having fun using movement and all our senses. •Familiar analogs of unfamiliar concepts and vocabulary will be provided to make new concepts and vocabulary meaningful . •All activities will be process oriented and developmentally appropriate. •The sole focus is nature learning . •Our lessons will be about things we can see and feel outdoors. •We are about real science. From tolerating and enjoying with our sensesand bodies, to participating with concepts and vocabulary with our minds and hearts. We will adventure into nature and invest in nature. First things first-- How will we engage very young children in nature? Children are developing representation=memory, language, cognition, motor and social skills, so we, ideally want to engage parents as well as teaching children—why? So that the parents invest in the enterprise of nature learning and will continue to facilitate their children’s adventures in the natural world. Our goal is that the children will experience the natural world in the ways young children learn—through movement, touch and acting on and in nature, and that children will enjoy, and therefore return to, learning about nature We do this, knowing that repeated experience will be required as children develop more representation, language and reasoning skills, to acquire the vocabulary and concepts we introduce. Understanding language and thinking Between the ages of 1 and 3 children change from babies, acting on the world with simple physical schemas, to preschoolers with language, social, motor and cognitive skills, so we are teaching to a range of abilities. Language ranges from some simple receptive understanding, to having symbolic behavior (indexes) to communicate, to combining words, to a variety of speech acts, and speech events. In general, the youngest children will respond by choosing , participating in the activity physically, or imitating actions. Imitating language does not teach vocabulary; rich experience paired with simple language makes words meaningful. Cognitively, children are in the sensory motor to concrete operations, stages, that is, they learn by using their senses and acting on real things. The youngest children need to be allowed to approach new experiences as they feel comfortable, generally through successive approximations or gradual phasing.

FAQs

What issue does the program address for young children?

The materials describe the problem of “Nature Deficit Disorder,” caused by children spending time on screens and experiencing life virtually from the earliest months.

How does Family Nature Guides connect to Starting Out Wild and Growing Up WILD?

Starting Out Wild was developed to extend Growing Up WILD for the youngest naturalists, and the content outlines steps such as adapting GUW, piloting with teachers, developing frameworks, writing original materials, and revising multiple times before transitioning to Family Nature Guides.

Why are parents involved in teaching very young children?

The materials state that children develop representation, memory, language, cognition, motor and social skills, so engaging parents helps them invest in nature learning and continue facilitating children’s adventures outdoors.

Sep 22, 2026

Upload by Riley